


Avengers: From the Beginning (Prequel to Return of Loki)

by RavenWillowDragomir



Series: Avengers [1]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Action, Action/Adventure, BAMF Clint Barton, BAMF Natasha Romanov, Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Clint whump, F/M, Friendship, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, KGB, Male-Female Friendship, Natasha Whump, SHIELD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-04
Updated: 2019-04-18
Packaged: 2019-05-18 01:22:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 9
Words: 42,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14842881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RavenWillowDragomir/pseuds/RavenWillowDragomir
Summary: (Placed before the events of Marvel movies and the other fanfics in this series) Clint meets Natalia Romanova, the dangerous KGB agent he's been sent to eliminate, but she is not what she appears to be. Clint decides to make a different call, and in that instant, changes the course of both their futures. Together, they must not only face their adversaries, but do so while navigating pain, fear, guilt, friendship, and love in order to transform the Black Widow from being Natalia Romanova into Natasha Romanov.





	1. CHAPTER 1

**Author's Note:**

> This work is the prequel to two other works in this series. I would say that I'll post chapters on a constant basis, but I would be lying. I may not post for a while, and when I do, I may post multiple chapters, but I will do my best to write fast. Enjoy.

***

Clint arrived an hour early, and spent his time exploring the spacious hall, checking for exits and noting the placement of the security cameras. By the time guests started arriving, he had already secured his seat at the corner of the bar, strategically placed where he could see the entire room, and was drinking from a glass of “scotch” that was actually iced tea. He watched the door through which people flowed with feigned indifference, as if he wasn’t looking for anyone in particular, as if he wasn’t waiting for someone. Clint was, in fact, waiting for someone. Her name was Natalia Alianovna Romanova, and he was waiting to kill her.

 

Natalia didn’t show up until almost an hour into the party. The dance floor was crowded and people were seated around tables while waiters dashed around taking orders. Clint was starting to wish that he could actually drink scotch when heads turned, and he glanced instinctively at the door. Though there was no picture to go off of, he knew immediately that the woman standing there was Natalia. Her long red hair was pinned elegantly, a few loose curls framing her face, and her simple black gown hugged her body and swept the floor when she walked. The archer tore his gaze away, turning momentarily to stare at the bar and clear his head. There was very little known about Romanova, but Clint got the feeling that Fury must have known a little more than he let on--specifically, that she was breathtakingly beautiful, and very young.

 

Once he had collected himself, he turned his attention back to her. He knew how to be discreet in his observation, but in this case, so many men were watching her that his attention would not be noticed. Upon entering she had immediately become engaged in conversation with an elderly woman, and Clint wondered if this was her mark; after all, she too had come to kill someone. As he watched, a large, bear of a man interrupted the conversation, offering Natalia his arm. She blushed, bid the other woman farewell, and allowed the man to sweep her onto the dance floor. Clint knew immediately that this was her mark. The way she blushed at his words, her shy smile and wide innocent eyes all served to stroke the man’s ego and interest. She danced as if she was a delicate flower, young and virtuous, but Clint knew better. Natalia was a lethal weapon, a hurricane, and that man merely stood in the eye of the storm.

 

After a while of dancing, Natalia and her partner, whose name he had overheard as Gregor, settled at a table near the dance floor. She murmured something to him and he nodded, prompting her to rise to her feet and head towards the bar, where Clint sat. For a moment the archer watched the expression of hunger on Gregor’s face as Natalia walked away, and then he focused his attention back on her. Her expression had fallen into a grim blank looks as she had turned away from Gregor, and Clint noted how remarkably tired she looked. The spark had faded from her eyes, and her expression was hard, unhappy. She leaned on the bar right beside him, throwing a sweet smile over her shoulder to Gregor before turning away, the smile disappearing. She raised her arm to grab the bartender’s attention, but the woman had become engaged in conversation with a very handsome man a few seats down and didn’t seem to see her.

“Hey,” Clint said, feeling that no man in his position would sit there and say nothing to her. She shot him a glance.

“Hello,” she replied somewhat dully. Clint was taken aback by her tone. The Black Widow he had learned about was charismatic and promiscuous, killing innocents for money and having no regrets. He’d been around the world a dozen times over, encountered all types of suffering, and he’d never heard or seen a more defeated and miserable person. A flicker of doubt about his mission crossed his mind. He tried to quelch it.

“You know, you could ditch ginormo,” he replied, nodding in Gregor’s direction. “You’d have more fun with me.” He needed to get her alone in order to kill her, before she could take out her mark.

“I’m not here for fun,” she said. A moment later she finally grabbed the bartender’s attention and ordered her drinks.

“For what, then?” Clint asked. The bartender handed Natalia the drinks. She glanced at Gregor and turned away, downing her vodka tonic in one. The bartender refilled her glass.

“Business,” she replied flatly, grabbing the drinks and walking back to Gregor, the smile plastered back on her face.

 

Clint woke up behind the bar, his head throbbing. He glanced at his watch, swearing at the realization that nearly 7 hours had passed. He quickly hacked into the security cameras to see where Natalia had gone, and learned that she had accompanied Gregor to his room after the party and not left. He chugged a glass of water and made his way to the fourth floor. For a split second, he wondered why she had just knocked him out, when everything he knew about her said she would have killed him. Clint shook the doubt, pulled out his silenced pistol, and quietly unlocked the door.

 

The room was a mess. The blankets and pillows were in disarray, the bathroom door was hanging on one hinge, and the carpet was strewn with glass and ceramic shards. The side table was overturned, the paintings and lamps were smashed, and there was blood everywhere. Clint saw four, possibly five bodies piled in the bathroom, another in the corner, and Gregor’s right in front of him. On the far side of the room, a woman was sitting at the table in the only unbroken chair remaining. Through the window behind her, dawn was breaking.

“Hands where I can see them, now!” He barked. He could have just shot her. He should have just shot her. But something wasn’t right. She placed her palms on the table and he moved forward, flicking on the lights. Natalia looked horrible. Her face was bruised, a gash ran across her cheek, and her eyes were rimmed with red, and slightly unfocused. Most of her was wrapped in a bloody sheet, but from the bruises and cuts on her neck and arms, as well as the bleeding wounds around her wrists, he believed she had been tortured. “What happened?” He asked. She gave a gesture that he took to be a shrug, but it looked like she was having a difficult time moving one shoulder. Clint glanced at her more closely, and realized that she was still suffering the effects of a drug. “I guess we both got made, then.” He didn’t want to care, but he couldn’t help it. His mission was to take out a dangerous player, but his instinct said that they were wrong about this girl. “Why knock me out? Why not kill me?” He asked.

“You were...not the mission.”

“I didn’t think you had a problem killing people to get what you want,” Clint replied.

“I complete...the mission,” Natalia said hoarsely. “That is all...I am required to do.” He filled a cup with water, setting it on the table in front of her. She stared at it for a moment, expressionless, blinking slowly, unfocused. He cleared his throat, drawing her back to reality, and she took the cup, downing the water. Her gaze flicked up to meet his. “What was it?”

“What was what?”

“The poison.” At his look of confusion, she nodded to the empty glass.

“I didn’t poison it.”

“Why give it to me?”

“Because...I don’t know. You looked thirsty, I guess.” He tilted his head slightly. “Why did you drink it, if you thought it was poisoned?” She gave the same, small, shrug-like gesture. Clint’s brow furrowed. “Answer me.”

“It would be...easier.” She drew the tattered sheet tighter around her body, her gaze again becoming unfocused as she looked out at the beautiful sunrise. Clint could tell that she looked without seeing.

“Easier than what?”

“This,” she said simply, not looking at him. He waited for her to elaborate, but she didn’t.

“What--” he started to ask, but was interrupted by Natalia,

“Do what you came here to do,” she said dully.

“I came to kill you.”

“I am aware of your mission, Agent Barton.” There was a long pause. “The drugs fade. Once I am capable, I will be required to return. I will be required to reveal unexpected factors. You are an unexpected factor.” Again, there was silence, as Clint contemplated her words. “They are not fond of unexpected factors. They terminate unexpected factors.” Clint was silent. “Are you not afraid of death, Agent Barton?”

“Aren’t you?” It was her turn to be silent. Clint’s arms were growing tired from holding the gun up.

“A good agent must be willing to do whatever it takes. Fear of death...clouds judgement.”

“Fear of death is how good agents stay alive,” he countered. “It’s basic human instinct. Take that away and you’ve got nothing left.”

“Nothing left to lose,” she responded.

“But nothing to live for,” he said frustratedly. “Nothing to fight for, nothing worth dying for. That doesn’t count as living.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Natalia said simply. Clint was struggling. He _knew_ that she had committed terrible crimes. She had murdered, slaughtered, and tortured. Some of her victims were deserving of their fate; many were not. So many crimes he knew of, and if she was half as good as people said, that was only the beginning. But he also knew, sitting here with her, that there was more to the story. He had heard all types of lies, knew to take everything with a handful of salt, but this girl was genuine.

“Make it quick,” she said, drawing his attention. “It will be only a few more hours before I am capable of returning. Before I _have_ to return.” She paused. “Once I am capable...I am required to return. Anything preventing me from doing so, I am required to overcome.” She glanced up at him. “I will have no choice.”

“What if you do? What if you choose not to return?”

“They will not permit my escape.”

“Escape? What, they’ll hunt you down for leaving? Do you have to provide notice?” She averted her gaze, focusing on the table. “They wouldn’t actually kill you for quitting, right?” He asked, quietly.

“Death would be too kind,” she said, so quietly it was almost a whisper.

“Death is not kind,” he said, agitated. “Death is not happy, it’s the end. It’s ultimate, it leaves no room for interpretation. Life can get shitty, but death is never the solution. There is always more. There is always something better.” She shifted almost imperceptibly, but didn’t look up from the table. “Do you really believe that it’s worth giving up the good, over the bad?”

“Have you ever considered, Agent Barton,” she said slowly, her voice strained. It sounded like she was struggling over whether to speak. “That there are things much worse than death?” His brow furrowed. She ran her fingers over the surface of the table, unconsciously.

“Why not end things yourself?”

“I can’t,” she replied simply.

“Why?”

“I am made not to.”

“Made?” She didn’t respond. “Do you want me to kill you?”

“I have not asked you to, I am simply informing you that I am incapable of stopping you.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why inform me? Why not at least try to fight me?”

“It would be futile. I recognize when it is over. I simply do not wish to waste my time, and you should not waste yours.”

“No spy in their right mind would just give up, we’d fight to the death. At least that way, we’d go down fighting.”

“I cannot fight.”

“If your adrenaline was surging, like it should be when there’s a gun pointed at your head, you’d be able to fight, for a few moments at least.”

“It is futile. I cannot win, there is nothing I can do. I see no point in--”

“Do you _want_ me to kill you?” He asked again, cutting her off. Her gaze was still focused on the table, but she looked agitated.

“I have already said--”

“You’ve said nothing,” Clint cut her off again. “It’s a yes or no question. Just answer me.” Her jaw twitched and she withdrew slightly, hunching her shoulders protectively. For a moment she looked as if she were about to say something, but then she clenched her jaw tightly shut, lowering her gaze. “What are you so afraid of?” He asked.

“Why is it so hard for you to do your duty, complete your mission, when it can be so easily done, when I am defenseless?” She said quietly. “Do you not fear punishment? Do you wish to inspire the wrath of your owners?” She glanced outside again, seemingly overwhelmed with feelings. “Do you too wish to punish me? Do you wish to abuse me, torture me? Do you believe that death is too good for me? Why do you draw this out, waste our time, and resist your mission?”

“I just--” he sighed, frustrated. “You are supposed to be this monster, this...cold blooded, heartless villain. But you aren’t what you’re supposed to be. And I so, _so_ wanted you to be everything I was told, because killing her? That would have been easy.” He paced back and forth, keeping the gun on her. “But you aren’t her! I see something in you, something I _wish_ I didn’t see, but I do!” He stopped, staring at her. “I was told that you are a deadly, destructive psychopath, but I can see the truth. You’re so _terrified_ that you can’t even speak. You aren’t the person I was sent to kill. So why, _why_ does everyone believe you to be her?” She finally looked up at him, meeting his insistent, questioning gaze. His face was slightly pink and his breath heavy from being worked up. Her face, in contrast, was devoid of all color and life, aside from the bruises.

“I play my role, Agent Barton,” she said calmly, quietly. Clint stared at her, searchingly, and then disappeared out of Natalia’s sight. She straightened her back, closed her eyes, and waited for the gunshot. A few moments later, everything went black.

 

***


	2. CHAPTER 2

***

 

Clint knew that the footsteps coming down the hall belonged to Nick Fury before the man even rounded the corner. They were angry, heavy footsteps, and they were approaching, fast. Clint straightened his back and fortified his resolution as Fury turned the corner, striding towards him.

“Barton,” he snapped, coming to a halt right in front of him. He peered through the window into the cell, where a red-headed woman lay unconscious, before focusing on the archer. “Was I unclear when I gave you your mission?”

“No, sir.”

“And what was your mission?”

“To eliminate the target, Natalia Alianovna Romanova.”

“And by which means were you ordered to eliminate her by?”

“Close-range, silenced pistol headshot.”

“So why,” he snarled, “is she alive, in that cell?”

“I made a different call,” Clint said, firmly.

“A different--you made--what the hell do you think gave you the authority to make a call like that?”

“I have a mind of my own. I don’t blindly follow orders when I disagree with them. I’m not going to kill someone because I’m told to do it, not if I know it’s wrong.”

“You don’t believe that woman is dangerous?”

“Oh, I believe she’s very dangerous. But not in the way we assumed.” Fury glared at him.

“Barton, you’re on thin ice. Very thin. You’ve brought her back here, a dangerous enemy, to our base. And now, I’m going to have to eliminate the threat myself.” He pulled out his gun, but Clint stepped between him and the door, grabbing his arm.

“Cut the bullshit, Fury.”

“ _Excuse_ me?” Fury asked, dangerously.

“You sent me on this mission. _Me._ ”

“I thought you were capable. I was wrong,” Fury retorted. Clint narrowed his eyes, continuing.

“I couldn’t figure out why. I’m an archer, my specialty is long range, and I could have found a way to take her out from the rooftops, but you _ordered_ me to get close, to spy, you said there was no other way.”

“There wasn’t--” Fury wasn’t able to respond before Clint interrupted,

“But even if that was true, there were plenty of older, more experienced agents who specialize in this type of close-quarters mission and would have been perfect for the job. In fact, from our reports, there’s a very good chance she would have beaten me if it came down to hand to hand combat--still, you chose me.”

“I thought you were--” again, Clint cut Fury off mid-sentence, saying,

“And I couldn’t figure out why. Why me, over all the better options. Why me, when any of them would have had much better luck against her. I thought maybe you didn’t like me and were testing my life to see if I was worthy. Then when I saw her, I wondered if it was a test to see if I would be distracted by a beautiful woman, but no,” Clint said, jabbing a finger at Fury’s chest. “You sent me because I know when I’m being lied to.”

“Oh?” Fury responded icily.

“There were so many other better, more qualified agents, who would have jumped at the opportunity to kill the Black Widow. I could have done it much more easily long distance, but you had me get up-close and personal because while everyone in this building can lie as easily as they can breathe, I’m the best at knowing when someone else is lying. I can tell when the spies are lying, when management is lying, I can even tell when _you’re_ lying sometimes. The difference between me and the Agents with the skills to kill her is that I can see when I’m being lied to, and I didn’t know the Agent she killed, meaning that I wasn’t overly biased against her. You sent me because you suspected that there was more going on here, and you didn’t want to kill an innocent girl, so you wanted me to judge her. I did, and I brought her here because there is more going on here, and she’s not who she’s said to be. You wanted my opinion because you trusted I’d make the right call and I did, so you can stop testing my resolve.” They stared at each other for a few moments and then Fury put his gun back in its holster.

“You know how dangerous she could be, if you’re wrong?”

“I’m not wrong.”

“It could all be an act to get an operative into our headquarters,” Fury responded, glancing again into the room.

“It’s not, Fury, I know it. And say they were trying to do that--there was no way of knowing that we would choose that event to make our attack, and even if they did, they had no way of knowing it would be me--and even if they did, there’s nothing in my record, secure or otherwise, to indicate that I wouldn't just kill her. That’s not what’s going on here. What’s going on is that somehow, this killer, this perfect agent, is a victim. I’m right,” he said firmly.

“So what happened? What did you notice?”

“It started at the party. When she wasn’t putting on a show for her mark she looked...She looked like a completely different person. Like a tortured soul. She didn’t have any tiny bit of happiness or life in her eyes.” He crossed his arms, looking in the window into Natalia’s cell. “Kind of like how Agent Tyler looked when he was recovered, after being held and tortured for three years. Hopeless.”

“And then?”

“She drugged my drink while she was getting drinks for herself and her mark. When I woke up I found her in his room. There were seven bodies, the place was trashed. She was sitting at the table, covered in blood. She’d been tortured and she was still heavily drugged. We talked.”

“What did she say?”

“She just,” Clint shrugged, “I gave her water, she was hoarse, and she drank the whole glass, then asked me what poison I put in it. She told me that I should complete my mission, knowing that my mission was to kill her. She wanted it over with because there were things much worse than death. A lot of it was how she acted. It seemed like…” Clint sighed. “I can’t really describe it. I know I’m right, and I think we can turn her. You know how valuable she’d be to SHIELD.”

“And she can give us information,” Fury said, nodding.

“It might be a while,” Clint said. Fury looked at him, raising an eyebrow. “I got the feeling she was holding back. She seemed to be willing to talk to me, but it was like there was some sort of barrier, some sort of training preventing her from telling me certain things.” He paused, looking at the woman in the room. “She said that if she ran away, the KGB would find her and that death would be too kind for what they’d do to her.”

“Hm,” Fury said, also staring at Natalia.

“And she said something when she was trying to convince me to kill her, without actually asking me to. She thought I should be worried about being punished, but instead of saying by SHIELD or my bosses, she said “owners.” I think we’re only beginning to scrape the surface of what they’re truly capable of.”

“You should stay with her,” Fury said, nodding towards the woman. “Let me know when she’s awake.”

“I will.” Fury turned and started walking back the way he came. “Fury?”

“Yes, Barton?”

“How sure were you that she wasn’t what she’s made out to be?”

“About 80%.”

“You know that if you were wrong, she probably would have killed me, right?”

“I am aware of that,” Fury replied, rounding the corner and disappearing out of Clint’s sight. Clint raised his eyebrows, then got the security monitor to open the cell door, closing it behind him. He sat down on a chair, crossed his arms, and waited for Natalia to wake up.

***

Natalia’s eyes opened slowly as they adjusted to the bright overhead light. She could feel the familiar restraints around her wrists and ankles, and for a moment, she thought she was back in the Red Room. As her vision cleared and the drug-induced fogginess faded, she saw that the ceiling and lights above her were different, and her restraints were soft on the inside to avoid injuring her. She turned her head to the side, and saw a man sitting in a chair.

“Morning,” Clint said. Natalia was too shocked by her current situation to respond, so she just stared at him, wide-eyed. “Well,” he said, pulling his chair closer and glancing at his watch. “It’s actually night.” She blinked at him. “Sorry I had to drug you. And,” he gestured at the restraints. “Safety is our first priority here.” She blinked again. “Can you speak?”

“Why?” She asked, glancing around the room again.

“Felt like it,” he said, shrugging.

“You...were sent to kill me.”

“Well, I made a different call.” Her brows furrowed as she looked him over.

“Why have you not been punished?”

“Turns out, the mission was to kill you, unless you weren’t who you’re said to be. So, I made a call. The right one.” Now that Natalia was fully aware, and the last vestiges of haziness were gone from her mind, panic set in. The beeping on the heartrate monitor increased and her breath became short as she looked around wildly. “Hey,” Clint said, standing and leaning over her. “What is it?”

“I--I can’t be here, I have...have to go.”

“No you don’t.”

“They’ll find me, I have to go” she started pulling at her restraints.

“Natalia, hey, stop! Look at me!” She did. “They’re not coming for you.”

“They are--”

“I’m not going to let them come for you, I’ll protect you.”

“No one can protect me!”

“SHIELD will protect you! SHIELD _can_ protect you!” He grabbed either side of her face, forcing her to look at him. “SHIELD will keep you safe.” Clint’s heart was racing almost as fast as hers was. He didn’t know what reaction he had expected when she woke, but sheer terror wasn’t it. “You’re not alone. You’re not _alone._ ” Her heartrate slowed as she stared up at him. He took a deep breath in and exhaled, and she copied him. “Good. Just breathe.”

“...Why would SHIELD protect me?” She asked quietly. “I’m the...enemy. I’ve done terrible things. I’ve killed…”

“Why did you do those things? Why did you kill those people?” Clint asked. He was sitting on the edge of her bed now.

“I was following orders,” Natalia responded.

“Why?”

“What do you mean?” She asked. “We follow orders...because that is what we’re supposed to do.”

“I mean, what do you get out of it?” She stared at him blankly. “For instance, I get an assignment--an assignment, by the way, is a mission that I can reject if I really don’t want to do it, with no punishment except disapproval and disappointment--and in return, I get free healthcare, weapons, and a ton of money. So, what did you get, for doing those things, killing those people?” Natalia opened her mouth and then closed it. Clint again sensed that her response was being silenced by something. “Why can’t you tell me?”

“I can’t,” she responded, helplessly.

“Why?” She stared. Clint sighed, running his hand through his hair.

“Have I angered you?” She asked. Clint noticed that her heartrate had increased slightly in response to his agitation.

“No, no you haven’t. I’m just trying to figure out how to communicate with you, how to get around this...mental block. How to ask the questions you can answer. I’m not angry.” Clint noted that her heartrate had returned to normal in response to his assurances, and continued. “When you don’t respond to a question, like you did just now, do you have an answer? If you were able to respond, do you know what you would say?”

“Yes.”

“How was this..censor established in your mind?” She said nothing. “Okay...is your inability to respond the result of an outside influence on you?”

“...Yes,” she nodded.

“So you were conditioned by something or someone, not to speak about certain subjects.” She struggled for a few seconds before responding,

“Yes.”

“Has this or similar conditioning been applied to other aspects of you?”

“Yes.”

“Like your actions?”

“Yes.” Clint sat back, thinking. If he was going to turn her into a SHIELD agent, they would need to surpass whatever conditioning she had. It was going to be incredibly difficult if not impossible to do so without knowing how she was conditioned in the first place. Clint sighed in frustration, running his fingers through his hair again. Again, Natalia’s heartrate increased in response to his bad mood. Clint raised his head to look at her.

“Are you afraid that I’m going to hurt you?” This time Natalia’s silence was voluntary; she stared at him, searching for the answer he was looking for. “Is that how you were conditioned? Through pain?

“Sometimes,” she said cautiously, still watching his face.

“But there’s more,” he said. She nodded. “You were brainwashed.” She nodded again. “When I think of brainwashing, your behavior strikes me as odd.” She tilted her head in confusion. “You clearly were unable to tell me things, and you knew you had to return, but you wanted me to kill you. That demonstrates a level of awareness of your condition that doesn’t match my knowledge of brainwashing.”

“The KGB…” Natalia began. She seemed to be looking for the words she was capable of speaking. “Is advanced beyond anything you could imagine, in many aspects of its operation.”

"So their methods for brainwashing are more advanced and thus different from what I know,” Clint said, nodding slowly.  "But you still fight it. You obviously have a mind of your own and have perspective over your missions. You know they’re wrong.”

“The KGB does not always achieve their long-term objectives, but they are persistent.”

“So brainwashing process is continuous. What happens if you aren’t continually exposed?”

“The KGB must be persistent to protect its assets.”

“...So the brainwashing is continuous in order to oppress your mind. Without it, they could not insure your obedience. Just being here, away from them, will weaken their control over you. How long until you can act and think more freely?” She considered his words for a moment before responding.

“It was important to the organization that I return immediately after completing my last mission. I had previously been on a long mission, and my briefing was short.”

“You were away from the brainwashing for a long period of time completing another mission, and were only back at the KGB long enough to receive your new mission, which was not long enough to brainwash you. They wanted you to return immediately for brainwashing because you had been without it for so long already that you would become a liability,” Clint translated. “You’re saying that it won’t be long.”

“Time is a factor,” she said, nodding. This was good. Natalia would be able to offer SHIELD information, and once she was free of the KGB’s control, Clint could help her turn her life around.

“I guess we’ll just wait it out, then,” he said. Clint glanced around. “I’m sorry about the cell, and the restraints. It’s only for a while, until we know we can trust you. Not that I don’t believe you, I just mean trust you to be acting independently of the brainwashing.” Natalia stared around, confused, then looked at him.

“This...is a cell?” Clint blinked. He too surveyed the barren room, the tiny restroom, the security cameras, the purposeful design that left nothing that could be turned into a weapon, and then looked back at her.

“What did you think it was?”

“A room,” she replied. “Perhaps a medical isolation room meant to protect me from infection, which had been equipped to restrain me.”

“Is this...is this like your room at the KGB?”

“I did not have a room at the KGB.”

“You’re saying you were kept in a cell?” She nodded. “Worse than this?” Clint had been held in dingy cells a few times, but he hadn’t imagined that the KGB would keep their spies in cells.

“I did not know cells had water, or bathrooms, or mattresses, or pillows, or blankets,” she said, looking around as she spoke. “Towels, food…” she shook her head.

“You didn’t even have a bed?”

“I had a shelf.”

“Was that part of your training? Living in a cell?” She couldn’t answer him. Clint sighed. “I guess we just have to wait until your brainwashing can be overcome.”

“Yes.” Clint moved back into his seat and reclined, lacing his fingers together behind his head. “You are not leaving?” She asked curiously.

“Nope.” He leaned forward, fiddling with his fingers. Natalia recognized that he was someone who did not easily sit still. Yet, he was willing to do so for her, and she could not determine why. “Is there anything I can do to help you? To speed up the process, make it easier?”

“...Would you tell me about freedom, Agent Barton?”

 

***


	3. CHAPTER 3

***

Clint was pacing back and forth in the hallway outside the door to Fury’s office, impatiently checking his watch every few seconds and glancing from one end of the hallway to the other, waiting. It was three in the morning, but he knew for a fact that Fury was still awake and in the building, he just didn’t know where. There were bags under the archer’s eyes; he had spent the better part of three days with Natalia, and had gotten only a few hours of sleep in that time, leaving him irritable and tired. He clutched a tablet to his chest, tapping his fingers against it restlessly. Just as he was about to return to the desk of Fury’s assistant and demand the Director’s location for the third time in the past hour, the man rounded the corner at the end of the hall.

“Barton,” he acknowledged. He too looked exhausted.

“Where have you been?” Clint snapped. “I’ve been waiting for almost three hours.”

“I’ve been in a meeting.”

“I need to talk to you.”

“And I need to speak with you as well.” Fury unlocked the door and held it open for him. “Come in.” Clint strode inside and collapsed into the chair while Fury settled across the desk from him. “I’ve been in a meeting with the Board of the Directors.”

“At three in the morning?”

“The meeting went longer than expected.” Clint narrowed his eyes.

“And you’re telling me this...because the meeting was about Natalia.”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“It was very difficult to convince them. She’s done terrible things and there’s no real evidence that she was not responsible for her actions. I sent you after her because I trusted your judgement, but from their perspective, you’re a young Agent with little influence. They don’t have as much confidence in your evaluation of her as I do.”

“But you did convince them, right?”

“They may not trust your analysis, but they trust mine. I vouched for you, and for Natalia. They did eventually agree that she could stay and defect to SHIELD, but we must meet certain requirements to do so.”

“Such as?”

“They don’t want her to go unsupervised, so they have given us two options. She can live here, in her cell, which we may make as comfortable as possible.”

“I didn’t save her from the KGB so she could be kept in another prison,” Clint growled. “What’s the other option?”

“She can live with you. It would give her more freedom, while still allowing you to keep an eye on her.” 

“I do have an extra bedroom in my apartment,” he said, nodding slowly. “There’s plenty of room, I can make that work.”

“The other main requirement is that she work with a partner.”

“A partner?” He echoed, raising an eyebrow.

“Like I said, they want her supervised.” Fury leaned back in his seat, crossing his arms. “You have always worked alone. Like most spies, you probably work better alone, as does she, but you’re the only option. Many of the other spies knew the Agent that she killed, and even those that didn’t have seen her...work, and cannot see past it. They don’t see or refuse to see the good in her. No one would volunteer to work with her, and forcing them to do so could have disastrous results. More than that, you are the only person she has connected with here. I know that when you starting working here you were adamant that you needed to work alone, so I understand if--”

“I’ll do it,” Clint said firmly. Fury tilted his head.

“I want you to understand what that means, Barton. There is no guarantee that the Board will ever trust her enough to let her work alone. If you agree to this, it’s permanent.”

“If she can’t work with me they’ll kill her, right?” Fury nodded. “Then I agree.” They stared at each other in silence for a few moments.

“You feel certain that she is good enough to not impair your work?”

“That’s actually what I came here to talk to you about,” Clint said, setting the tablet on Fury’s desk. “I had her take the SHIELD entrance tests today.” Fury picked the device up, glancing at the archer’s face.

“And?”

“Just look.” Nick obliged. As he scanned the results, his expression became almost unreadable, though Clint saw a hint of an eyebrow being raised.

“This,” Fury said slowly, setting the tablet back on the table, “is impossible.”

“That’s what the examiners said. They had her take the tests twice.”

“You don’t understand,” Fury said. “It is  _ impossible  _ for a human to earn a score of 100 on any of these tests.”

“What...why? Why include an unachievable score?”

“The highest and lowest scores, 100 and 1, can’t be set based on human performance, because there is always the possibility that someone could score higher or lower than the set standard. If someone was able to score above a 100 or below a 1 on a scale of 1 to 100, the scoring system would not encompass all possible scores. To ensure that all scores fall within the range, the scores of 100 and 1 are set by the computers, and are impossible achieve.”

“I knew I didn’t miss a point on archery,” Clint muttered under his breath.

“Barton, focus,” Fury growled.

“Why not make 0 and 101 impossible?”

“I didn’t design the tests, but the people that did are incredibly intelligent, and undoubtedly did so out of necessity. They said something about parameters. The scoring system is not what’s important here,” he said, tapping the tablet. “How she could beat our computers when it’s not humanly possible, is.”

“What, you think she’s an alien?” Clint scoffed.

“I find that highly unlikely. What’s less unlikely is that she has been artificially enhanced.”

“Isn’t that impossible?”

“You’ve heard about Steve Rogers, the test subject for the Super Serum. The transformation he underwent when given the Super Serum left him with superhuman abilities.”

“Yes, but she’s not _ just _ strong and fast,” Clint responded, nodding to the tablet. “It’s her brain too. From what I read, the Super Serum couldn’t do this.”

“I’m not suggesting that she was given the serum, Barton,” Fury said irritably, “I’m pointing out that even decades ago, it was possible to make major modifications to human performance. If she’s telling the truth, and the KGB is so far advanced in their brainwashing…” he raised an eyebrow, “maybe it’s not their only advancement.”

“Yeah, if they can screw with her mind as much as she says they did, I wouldn’t put genetic enhancement past them.”

“Was there anything...strange, about her medical examination?” Fury asked.

“Uh…” Clint coughed, suddenly looking uncomfortable.

“What?”

“I...she...well, Natalia hasn’t exactly had her medical exam yet.”

“ _ What?”  _ Fury snarled. “Why the hell not? It’s dangerous enough bringing her here, and she hasn’t had an exam? She could have contagious diseases, tracking chips, a bomb in her chest cavity for all you know.”

“She doesn’t. I know she doesn’t because I asked her, and she didn’t lie to me.”

“Have you considered that she might not know, if she’s been brainwashed?”

“Look, I’ve been around her almost 24/7 for more than four days. If she had any disease that the KGB would purposefully make her a carrier of in order to attack us, I would have it. I had my monthly exam less than ten hours ago, and I’m fine. If she had a bomb in her chest cavity,” he said, making it clear how ridiculous he thought the idea was, “it would have gone off by now. As for tracking chips, we’re in a giant ass tower in the middle of New York. They don’t really need a tracking chip to locate us.”

“You  _ know  _ how much damage a compromised individual can do here, or are you forgetting what happened with Agent Brown? A single rescued Agent with toxic blood caused the deaths of almost fifty people, including some of our best surgeons and scientists, and the enemies that were behind it aren’t even half as resourceful as the KGB. It’s better to be safe. It’s  _ necessary  _ to be safe.”

“She doesn’t like doctors, okay? She doesn’t like doctors, or scientists, or labs.”

“She told you this?”

“No, she…” Clint frowned, trying to determine how to explain it. “I’m not exactly sure of the cause, it could be the drugs, her “detoxing” from the brainwashing, the shock of having her life completely turned around, or all of the above, but she’s not able to control her heart rate. I’m sure that she, like every spy, was trained to control her heartrate so as not to give away information when tortured or questioned, but right now it shows how she’s really feeling even when she’s able to mask it externally. Every time a doctor comes into her cell to check on her, Natalia’s heart rate increases, and her heart was racing during the SHIELD tests conducted in laboratory settings, from the moment she stepped foot into the rooms. I didn’t want to subject her to being poked and prodded and scanned until I knew she would be allowed to join SHIELD, until I knew it wouldn’t be pointless.”

“And you don’t think her anxiety around scientists could, say, be explained by...experiences from genetic engineering?” Fury asked snarkily.

“Okay, yes, now that I think about it,” Clint muttered in annoyance, “it’s beginning to make sense. Give me a break, Fury, genetically modified human beings didn’t exactly jump automatically to my mind.”

“Fair,” Fury conceded. “You’ll need to speak with her about it.” Clint narrowed his eyes.

“SHIELD is not going to do experiments on her to try and reproduce whatever they did to her in order to genetically enhance our own Agents,” he said forcefully.

“I’ll do my best, Barton. There’s no way around our scientists taking a few painless blood samples for study, and I feel certain that they will wish to conduct further harmless tests simply to more accurately gauge her skills. Depending on what they find and how useful it might be, it may be difficult to convince the Board not to pursue the matter.”

“She’s scared just at the sight of scientists and doctors,” Clint growled, “even when all they’re doing is checking her wounds. How do you think she’s going to react if they actually start acting like the KGB scientists? Do you  _ really  _ think that’s going to go well?”

“I’m not the one you have to convince, Barton. If this kind of strength, speed, and intelligence can be reproduced, it could have a huge impact on this organization and our ability to affect positive change. That kind of potential looks very tantalizing to the Board and to the scientific community here at SHIELD. An argument could be made that we need to do everything we can to level the playing field with the KGB, and that includes having Agents just as good as theirs.”

“This is all still speculation!” Clint said, frustratedly. “We don’t  _ know  _ that she’s been genetically modified in any way. You’re just guessing.”

“It’s either that or she’s an alien,” Fury responded, “and I think you believe that she’s been modified, or you wouldn’t feel so defensive about SHIELD not looking into it. In any case,” he added, as Clint opened his mouth to make an angry retort, “I believe any indications of genetic engineering that might warrant further study will be...lost, until Natalia has had time to adjust.” 

“Thank you,” Clint replied begrudgingly. Due to their exhaustion, tensions were running high, but Clint understood the significance of Natalia’s scores and the fact that Fury was doing everything he could.

“Get some sleep, Barton. I’ll have all the forms you’ll need to sign in your inbox by seven. She’ll have to fill out and sign all the paperwork, and have her medical exam by the end of the day. I suggest you leave early and get your apartment ready. Assuming all goes well, you can bring her there tomorrow morning and take the day off, give her time to settle.”

“Alright,” Clint said, rising to his feet and rubbing his eyes. “We’ll start in on the paperwork when she wakes up and I’ll get her in for her exam in the afternoon. That’ll give me enough time to get the apartment ready for Natalia.”

“Barton,” Fury said, as the archer turned to go. Clint looked back at him.

“Yeah?”

“She’s a SHIELD Agent now, she needs a new identity. She is no longer Natalia Alianovna Romanova. It’s your job to remake her. Help her become who she wants to be.” 

“I will.” Clint left the office, far too tired to drive home, and walked until he reached the hallway lined with bedrooms for Agents to crash in. He found the first unoccupied room, fell onto the bed, and was asleep within seconds.

 

***

 

Natalia woke slowly, blinking away her blurry vision as her mind came into focus. At her request, they had been giving her sleep medication at night, in an IV to combat her questionably high tolerance. Normally, she would have avoided medication at all costs; it brought up memories from years of torment in the Red Room, being pumped with drugs that did everything from knocking her unconscious to making her blood feel like acid. Here, though, she knew she would be unable to sleep without the medications, and if she did, she would be unable to control her dreams. As the brainwashing faded her mind grew clearer and her thoughts more independent, but it also washed away her ability to sleep soundly. They couldn’t have her nightmares compromising her alias when she was with a mark, so her brainwashing wiped them away, allowing her to sleep peacefully. Without it, she knew the vivid nightmares filled with memories of every imaginable pain would return, and her fear of them overwhelmed her fear of medications. Natalia did not wish to relive that pain, and she did not want Agent Barton to see her like that. She turned her head to look at the archer, who was sitting in the corner with a pile of paperwork. He looked up.

“Hey,” he said, pulling his chair closer. Natalia sat up, glancing down at her wrist. When she had gone to sleep, it had been chained to the bed, but the handcuff was nowhere to be found. She looked up at him, raising her eyebrow.

“I am not restrained. Why?”

“Well, I’m not just filling out a mountain of paperwork because I enjoy it,” he said cheerfully. “Turns out defecting is kinda complicated.” Both eyebrows were raised now.

“I…?” she said, questioningly.

“Yep, the Board took a vote last night. You’re in. We’re going to work together.”

“Together?”

“As partners.”

“Okay,” she responded slowly. Natalia had always worked alone and wanted to continue to do so, but it was clear in her mind that the only alternative was death.

“And you’re going to live with me. I’ve got an apartment nearby with two bedrooms.”

“If you live alone, why do you have an apartment with two rooms?” She asked.

“It was the only available room on the top floor of the tallest apartment building close to our Headquarters. I like heights,” he shrugged.

“So...what now?”

“Well,” he said. “You’ll need your medical exam, SHIELD ID, etcetera, and you have to read and sign all this,” he held up the stack of papers. “But in order to sign all the papers, you’ll need to know what name you’re signing.”

“We must create a new identity for me.”

“Yes. Any ideas for a name?”

“Isabella Jean Walker,” she said.

“How about Natasha Romanoff,” Clint countered.

“That is simply an American version of my name,” she said, sounding confused.

“The KGB taught you to come up with names like Isabella Jean Walker almost instantly. Would they ever believe you’d be stupid enough to use Natasha Romanoff?”

“No,” she responded after some deliberation.

“So we use their own arrogance against them. They won’t believe that you would defect with a barely changed name and appearance because it would go against what they taught you. If they somehow find out about your SHIELD identity they’ll think it’s a decoy. Hopefully we’ll have defeated the KGB before they figure out it’s really you, and if not, you’ll be a SHIELD Agent. We protect our own. How does that sound?”

“Good.” Clint wrote the name on the form he was holding.

“And how old are you?”

“About 17.” He glanced up.

“Seventeen?”

“Yes.”

“But our tracking of your activities goes back years.”

“Yes.” He opened his mouth to respond and then slowly closed it. Clint knew this wasn’t the time to address the horrifying realization that the crimes SHIELD had recorded her as responsible for had been committed by a child.

“Okay, um…” he shook his head to clear his mind. “What’s your birthday?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” Natalia tilted her head at him, wondering why he was echoing her.

“They never told me. They would tell me what age I am, but with everything they did to my mind, I can’t remember the day. It’s soon, I’m certain that it’s sometime in December.”

“Well...Fury says we should make you 21, just to avoid any age restrictions.”

“But I don’t know what day.”

“That’s okay, because it doesn’t matter.” She looked confused. “It doesn’t matter when Natalia was born, because you’re not her anymore.”

“So...today?”

“No. For one thing, if anyone got into our records, your birthday and the day you joined being the same is a bit suspicious. But more importantly, Natalia’s life ended and yours began at 5 in the morning, November 23rd, when we met in that hotel room.” Natalia didn’t smile--he hadn’t yet seen even a hint of a real smile--but for a moment her hardened expression softened slightly, and he could almost see a shard of happiness in her eyes.

“I believe that is suitable, Agent Barton,” she said quietly.

“Please, call me Clint,” he responded. He had already asked her to use his first name on several occasions, but she was having a hard time dropping the formalities. Given his limited knowledge, he doubted she had ever called anyone at the KGB by their first names, and understood that it was a difficult transition. After living in an open, loving community as a child, it had taken him months to grow used to using last names to address people at SHIELD.

“I believe that is suitable, Clint,” she corrected herself. He smiled, holding out the forms and a pen.

“You just have to sign.” She took the paper, clicked the pen, and signed. Speed and proficiency at forgery had been part of her SHIELD entrance tests, so he was unsurprised to see how easily and naturally she had signed her new name. “Well then,” he said, taking the paper back from her. Clint scanned the page to ensure it was completely filled out, then laid it face down on the counter. He picked up the next sheet from the mountain of paperwork, holding it out to her.

“It seems that you and I, Natasha Romanoff, have a lot of work to do,” he said, grinning, then placed his other hand on the massive pile of forms and continued, “and we’re just getting started.”

 

***


	4. CHAPTER 4

***

 

“So, here we are,” Clint said, holding the door of his apartment open for Natasha. She stepped inside and he followed, letting the door fall shut behind them with a series of clicks as the locks re-engaged. Natasha stood in the short entranceway, taking in the large apartment, which had a sleek interior design and furnishings that looked both cozy and expensive. She took a few cautious steps further, to the end of the hall, so she could better examine the flat. To her immediate left was a large kitchen with gleaming counters that, despite its spotless appearance, she could tell was well used. Her eyes swept across the room, scanning the sunken living room area on the opposite side of the space, and making their way to the far wall, where glass doors opened onto a patio. 

“It’s nice,” Natasha said, finally returning Clint’s watchful gaze.

“Yeah? Because we could always move, if you’d prefer something else. I’ve moved plenty of times, I’m pretty flexible.”

“This is good.”

“Cool,” he said, clearly pleased by her approval. He hung his jacket on the hooks by the door. “This is the main closet for general stuff, like coats and grenade launchers,” he said, motioning to the nearest door on the right side of the room. “Then there’s laundry, etcetera,” he gestured to a set of doors, “then that’s my room,” he indicated the next door, “and yours is the furthest door. Each of our rooms has its own bathroom.”

“What is your protection system?”

“The whole place has SHIELD security. There are cameras in the building, outside the door, outside,” he gestured towards the patio. “All possible entrances, including windows and air ducts, have alarms and sensors. The walls and doors are reinforced and all of the glass is bulletproof. We can go over all the details and passcodes later this evening.”

“Okay,” she replied. “What now?”

“Let’s see what you think of your room and move your stuff in there,” Clint said, glancing at the SHIELD duffel bags and backpack she was carrying. “Not that you have a lot of stuff to move in. But we’ll get you stuff soon.” He led her over to the far door and opened it, flicking on the lights. “Sorry it’s kind of bland at the moment, but this way you can decorate it however you’d like.” The room was spacious and clean, with a large bed covered with attractive black and white bedding, but the walls were blank and the room almost empty, containing only the bed, a dresser, and a nightstand with a reading lamp. Considering that less than 24 hours ago the room had been entirely empty, Clint felt that he had done alright.

“It’s very nice, thank you, Clint,” she said, setting the bags on the bed and turning to the empty dresser.

“Well, like I said, in the next few days we can go out and get you some new furniture, clothes, and other things,” he leaned his shoulder against the doorframe, watching her unpack.

“What’s wrong with my clothes?” She raised her eyebrow.

“Well, nothing, it’s just that they’re SHIELD clothes. I mean black t-shirts, pants, and boots are fine, they’re good, but you should shop for stuff that you like and you want to wear…” he trailed off. Natasha returned to unpacking, averting her gaze. Clint frowned in confusion.

“Have I said something wrong?”

“No.”

“Because you can tell me, you know, if I say something that you don’t understand or that you don’t like. I swear, I’d never intentionally offend you, and I’d really like to know when I do, so that I can avoid doing so in the future.”

“Nothing’s wrong.”

“Alright,” he said slowly, not entirely convinced. “Well...just for future reference, if I ever do say something you don’t like or that confuses you, you can tell me. Please tell me,” he added sincerely, “because I’d much rather be corrected than ignorant.”

“I will,” Natasha responded. She opened her backpack, setting a huge book on the nightstand and stepping into the bathroom for a moment. When she returned, she folded up the empty duffel bags and backpack, neatly tucking them away on the top shelf of her closet, setting the backpack on the bed and turning back to face him. Clint watched her eyes scan the room again, anxiously, before settling on him.

“And now?”

“C’mon,” he gestured for her to follow him back out into the main room. At his suggestion, Natasha took a seat on one of the stools sitting at the kitchen’s island, watching him. “The fridge,” the archer said, opening the handle, “pretty self-explanatory. Eat whatever you want, cook whatever you want, we’ll get whatever food you want,” he closed the fridge. “Plates, bowls, cups, cutlery,” Clint continued, motioning to various cabinets, “trash. Cleaning supplies and linens are with the washer and dryer, and,” he drummed his hands on the counter, looking around, “I think that’s most of it, the basics. Questions?”

“No.”

“Right. Tomorrow, when we go in, we’ll get you set up with your own tech stuff.”

“When will we begin our work?”

“I’m not sure. We still need to get you outfitted for your gear, get a bit of practice in together, and wait for an assignment. It could be a week, maybe two, depending.”

“On what?”

“Well, before we get sent out we need to prove we can function as a team. Since neither of us have ever done so before, I don’t know how long it will take us to adjust.”

“I understand.”

“Also,” Clint said, rubbing the back of his neck. He took a seat beside her, resting an elbow on the counter in a very relaxed, non-confrontational posture, “we need to talk about your entrance tests.”

“I am listening,” she said expectantly.

“What?” Clint asked, confused by her tone. Even if she was aware of what he was thinking, he was preparing to discuss what he imagined would be an unpleasant subject and did not expect her eagerness.

“You never fully explained to me their function. You told me you would do so later.”

“Right,” Clint said, a bit relieved to put off the difficult conversation for a moment, “all SHIELD trainees have to take them in order to graduate training and become Agents. They just test to see whether we meet the benchmark requirements for SHIELD.”

“So everyone takes the same tests?”

“Yes and no. Most of the tests are universal, meaning that all SHIELD Agents need to perform adequately on them in order to pass. All of us are tested for generalized knowledge, and stuff like our skills with forgery, languages and accents, and our ability to hack. We also all are judged based on our physical speed, accuracy, dexterity, and strength, and our capabilities with common weapons. Things like that, which all of us need in order to survive, are covered in the generalized tests.”

“And the non-generalized?”

“Well, they make specific tests for our specialties. For example, I took all the regular tests, and then a bunch more that closely examined my archery skills. Since you don’t have a declared specialty at SHIELD, you went through the regular generalized tests and then generalized specialty tests.”

“I see,” Natasha replied, waiting for him to elaborate or make a point. When he didn’t, she asked, quietly, “did I perform inadequately?”

“No, not at all.”

“Then for what reason do you look so reluctant to speak?”

“You didn’t perform inadequately,” Clint mumbled, “quite the opposite.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Well, the tests are out of 100. The highest and lowest scores achievable are 2 and 99, god knows why it can’t be 1 and 100…”

“The base coding would throw the scale and--” she said, glancing at his face, “...nevermind.”

“The point is, Natasha, you earned scores of 100 on several of your tests, something no human could do,” Clint said, watching her closely. She lowered her head. “It’s alright,” he said softly. “It doesn’t matter to me, whatever it is, and it doesn’t change anything. We just have to know, is all.”

“I am human,” she said, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye, “I was  _ born  _ human…” she hesitated, “...but a human is not the perfect weapon, it can’t be, not as just itself.” 

“So what happened?”

“They changed me.”

“Changed you how?” She bit her lip, looking away from him. “That’s alright, you’re not ready to talk about it yet. We’ve got time. The only thing I need to know now is, did they do anything that could be...contagious? That’s not the right word, but you know what I mean. Transferable.” She shook her head. “Alright, we’ll just talk about it when you’re ready, then,” Clint said cheerfully, spinning his stool.

“How old are you?” Natasha asked skeptically, raising her eyebrow.

“What’s the point of having stools if you don’t want to spin on them?”

“For sitting, generally.”

“Ha!” He grinned. “That was almost funny! But seriously,” he grabbed the counter to stop his stool from spinning. “What do you want to do now? Do you want to...take a nap? A shower? Go downtown? Read a book? Watch a movie?” Natasha stared at him. “Sorry, sometimes I get a bit hyperactive when I haven’t slept much.”

“Perhaps you should sleep, then?”

“Nah, I’ll sleep better if I wait until tonight. Don’t want to screw with my sleep cycle if I don’t have to.” He tapped his fingers on the counter, glancing outside. “It’s super windy.”

“I can see that.”

“C’mon,” he said, jumping off his stool and heading towards the patio doors. Natasha slid from her seat, following warily.

“Where are we going?” She inquired.

“Not far.” He opened the door, holding it open until she stepped through. Clint let the door fall shut and grabbed onto the rungs that were secured to the side of the building. “Follow me!” He instructed, ascending the ladder. Natasha followed, reluctantly. When she reached the top, she found Clint standing at the edge of the roof, arms spread wide, grinning. 

“What are you doing?” Natasha asked, raising her voice to be heard over the wind.

“Having fun!” He shouted, glancing back at her. “You should try it!”

“For what reason?”

“Because life is meant to be enjoyed!”

“How is endangering your life enjoyable?”

“Oh, please. The windowsills on this building jut out like seven inches and at this height I’d have several seconds to grab one before I hit the ground.” He turned to look at her. “Please?” She approached the edge and stepped up beside him.

“I still do not understand,” she said.

“Throw your arms out, like you’re flying.” She did as he instructed, her sigh lost in the wind. “Allow yourself to feel it.”

“Feel what?”

“The rush, the high...literally” he smiled at her. “It’s okay to relax. It’s okay to  _ enjoy  _ being alive, Natasha. Feel your heart beating, feel the cold. Feel the adrenaline coursing through your veins, and don’t be afraid of it. Let it lift you up, let it make you fly.”

“Why?”

“Because this is it, Natasha. This is where we are. We are standing on the precipice, looking at the world.” He looked out over the city before returning his gaze to meet hers. “A world that is not tarnished by our pasts, a world we have yet to discover, and a world we will protect, together.” Natasha turned to the city. “I know you’re afraid, Natasha,” Clint said.

“I am not afraid,” she replied, stiffly.

“You’re afraid to believe, you’re afraid to hope, because you think this world is a fantasy that will crumble. It’s so much easier to protect yourself from pain if you don’t allow yourself to believe that this can be real, because you can’t lose something you never believed you had. As cliche and overused as the phrase is, no pain, no gain. You have a  _ chance  _ here, a chance to be everything you want to be and a chance to change your story. You don’t have to be Natalia Romanova, killer of innocents. You can be Natasha Romanoff, the woman who saved a hundred times more people than she hurt, but you can’t be both. You have to let go of Natalia, because she’s grounding you. Let yourself  _ believe  _ you can fly.” 

“Perhaps,” Natasha said, after a long pause, “if S.H.I.E.L.D does not work out for you, you should be a motivational speaker.”

“I used to help write a lot of plays,” Clint said, smiling. “The more dramatic and emotional, the better.”

“How did you get from writing plays to being a S.H.I.E.L.D Agent?” Natasha asked, raising her eyebrow at him.

“Never could resist a good hero,” he said with that same wide, enthusiastic grin. “For real, now. Let it all go and just live in this moment.” 

 

She gave a small nod and looked back at the city that stretched before them, soaking it in. Her eyes fell on the people, tiny colourful specs below, as they crowded the streets, some huddled together while others stood alone. She watched as they made their way through the city, a constant stream of people moving to and fro, like beacons against the gray of the pavement and the white of the snow. Her focus turned to the cars parked bumper to bumper along the roads, full of people on their way to where they needed to go. She scanned the buildings that stretched into the sky, the gray clouds above, and then closed her eyes.

 

Natasha and Clint stood at the edge of the building, arms outstretched, so far above the city that they were invisible to all but themselves. The wind roared around them, causing them to sway instinctually to maintain their balance and sending ripples through the fabric of their clothes.

Natasha’s hair was lifted into the air, tugged by each new gust of wind and whipped across her face like a stinging blow. As minutes passed, the cold began to seep into their bones, raising the hair along their arms and sending shivers down their spines. Their hearts hammered against their chests in loud protest as their body heats were stripped away, replaced by a numbness that spread slowly but surely across their skin. The wind howled around them, drowning out all but the pounding of their hearts, whipping harshly across their dry faces, and clutching them in its icy grip. Every bone ached and every inch of their skin stung, leaving their bodies screaming for relief.

 

Natasha and Clint stood at the edge of the building, consumed and battered by the unrelenting wind; they did not yield. They stood still, as if removed from time, and remained that way for a long while.

 

***

 

“You have installed a ladder to the rooftop,” Natasha said. “Does that mean you frequently stand up there as we did?” Natasha was sitting in an armchair, warming her hands on her mug of tea and looking over at the kitchen where the archer stood. They had descended the ladder and, to Natasha’s surprise, learned that more than three hours had passed. She had warmed up quickly once inside, but Clint had been so cold that he had jumped into the shower for almost an hour while Natasha read a significant portion of a book on archery technique. Clint, his hair still damp, poured himself a mug of tea and dropped onto the couch next to her chair, miraculously not spilling a drop of his tea in the process.

“Yes and no,” he replied, lounging comfortably on the couch. “Yes, I go up there all the time, no, not usually for that. I like to be up high. I like to see things, everything. I’m not just “Hawkeye” for my excellent vision and hearing.” He took a sip of his tea. “It’s just sometimes, when I’m in the mood and it’s raining, or windy, I like to go up there. I fight for a living, so it’s no surprise that I’m a bit of an adrenaline junky.”

“Junky?” Natasha asked, sceptically.

“It’s a rush, a drug. But I guess, up there,” he nodded to the ceiling, “it’s about more than just the adrenaline.”

“What, then?”

“Well...when you’re out there in the pouring rain or the freezing wind, you don’t just get adrenaline, your body goes into overdrive, you know? Your heart beats faster so you can hear it pounding, your extremities get cold because your body is diverting blood and oxygen to vital organs...you get goosebumps to raise the hairs on your body to provide more warmth, you shiver to raise your body heat…”

“I know.”

“The point is that your body does all of it naturally, acting on instinct. When we’re in danger, like when we’re very cold, everything our bodies do is to protect us and save our lives. We feel, at least people like us, feel most alive when we’re fighting to stay that way. That’s why I wanted you to come up there with me. To know you’re alive.”

“I understand the objective to make me “feel alive” but not the purpose of doing so.”

“Because you wouldn’t fight me, Natasha,” Clint replied. “You were drugged, which meant you didn’t have to follow protocol, and in that moment, when you had a mind of your own, you didn’t want to fight for your life.”

“You are worried that I may act similarly on a mission,” she stated.

“Yes, and I’m worried about you. Your life has value.”

“I would not endanger you, S.H.I.E.L.D, or our missions,” she said seriously. “As long as my life is necessary I shall protect it.”

“I’d say your life has inherent value as long as you’re alive, but I’m not sure that would make a difference to you at this time, so I’ll say this: you’re a S.H.I.E.L.D Agent now, and you’re going to make a damn good one. Since S.H.I.E.L.D Agents make the world a safer place and you have the skills to make a significant contribution towards that objective, your life will always have value in the war against evil.” 

“I understand,” she said, nodding slowly.

“Good, now, let’s talk dinner. I could cook, but I don’t really have groceries. We could go out, but on your first night...maybe we could order delivery?”

“Okay.”

“Whatever you like, this is  _ your  _ first day, so you should decide. Plus, I don’t think there’s anything you could want that I won’t eat.”

“You should decide.”

“Seriously, I’ll eat anything you order, I  _ love  _ food. I love cooking it, I love eating it...I’m not sure I’ve ever met a food I won’t eat. C’mon, what’s your favorite food?”

“Please,” she said, looking uncomfortable, “just choose something.”

“Everyone has a favorite food. Do you like Italian? Japanese? Chinese? Korean? American? I could go on, and on…”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean?”

“I have never...I just…”

“You’ve never eaten real food?” Clint asked, trying not to sound astonished.

“I did not often meet my marks in restaurants...the few dining establishments where I did meet my marks, and the kinds of men they were,” she shrugged, “I just had salad. I wouldn’t call what I was given at the KGB ‘food.’”

“You never even...stopped by a restaurant on your way to or from a mission?”

“It was not permitted.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I was not meant to be a...person.”

“How could eating real food make you a ‘person?’” He questioned.

“You have said it. Everyone has a favorite food. They have preferences. People are measured by who they are, and who they are is defined by their actions, which are based on their preferences. A perfect spy is exactly what they are made to be and no more. Even the smallest of opinions creates a personality and sense of individuality that does not entirely conform to who they are required to be. People are built on preferences, weapons are not.”

“That’s…” Clint stared at her for a moment with a mixture of shock, anger, and pity on his face, then quickly composed himself. “You’ve never made any choices for yourself, have you?” She shook her head. “...and you’ve never bought your own clothes or furniture,” he continued, realization hitting him. “That’s why you shut down on me earlier.”

“I will be satisfied with whatever I am given,” she responded quickly.

“That’s the thing, Natasha, I don’t want you to be satisfied, I want you to be happy. I  _ want  _ you to be a person, I want you to...hate some foods and love others, decide that you prefer certain colors, decide what movies and music you like, choose whatever artwork you enjoy…” he paused as Natasha’s eyebrows rose and she examined him as if he was insane. “But let’s just start with food, okay? We’ll introduce you to a bunch of it and you can decide what you think of it. I guess let’s start with...Chinese.” 

“Alright,” she responded. He withdrew his phone and walked over to the fridge, reading from a list of phone numbers as he dialed. Clint placed his order and returned to his seat on the couch.

“It shouldn’t take long, they’re pretty quick. When the food gets here I’ll just run down to the lobby to pick it up.” He took a big gulp of his tea. “What do you want to do with the rest of the evening? I’m betting you haven’t watched much tv, we could watch a movie or a show?”

“You said we would go over the apartment’s security,” Natasha said.

“After that.”

“I believe that I would like to spend the rest of the evening in my room, if that is alright?”

“Natasha, you don’t have to ask permission, it’s your home. But what are you going to do? There’s no tv, no books.”

“I would like to read the S.H.I.E.L.D manual,” she replied.

“Right,” Clint said, remembering the massive spiral-bound manual she had set on her nightstand. “What for? I mean, our jobs aren’t complicated...well, they are, but they’re complicated because of what we’re doing, not the regulations that determine how we do it.”

“Have you not read the entire manual?”

“I’ve read a lot of it,” he said sheepishly. She looked at him judgmentally. “Hey, it’s over 1,000 pages, no one has read the whole thing except our supervisors and the people who wrote it. Honestly, there’s only about 50 pages of that thing that you need to know, I can show you which ones if you want.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I will read the whole thing. I need to know what all of the rules and regulations are in order to adhere to them. Also...S.H.I.E.L.D is everything the KGB is not. You do not feel the need to read the entire manual because you intuitively know what is normal, correct, and necessary. I know nothing, and I need to know everything in order to do well.”

“I understand,” Clint said, standing and taking their empty tea cups to the dishwasher. “And don’t worry, Natasha. You’ll learn.”

 

The two spent the next hour and a half going over the apartment’s security, registering Natasha with her own access codes, and eating Chinese food, all of which she assessed as merely “good.” After a rather hasty meal, Natasha cleaned her dishes and disappeared into her room. Clint sighed, watching the closed door with concern for a few moments before retreating to his own room. He tried to watch tv, but after 30 minutes he gave up and walked over to his closet. After rummaging around for a few minutes, he withdrew his copy of the S.H.I.E.L.D manual. Clint settled himself in his armchair, turned on his reading lamp, and began to read.

 

***


	5. CHAPTER 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that this chapter took so long! I had surgery (I wrote some of this right after, so the quality may not be the same, it also doesn't add a ton of plot because I didn't really trust my pain-addled mind with long-term objectives) and then I moved. Classes will be starting up in a few days here, which will likely slow down my writing rate. If anyone is following the work and it's been too long (like a month) since I've posted, just comment--I'll get an email which will remind me to write.

 

***

“When will we receive our first assignment?” Natasha asked, dodging his kick. The two Agents stood on mats in the empty gym, circling each other with their guards raised.

“I have no idea, it’s not up to me,” he responded, blocking her blow, grabbing her wrist and twisting her arm behind her back.

“It is Director Fury who will decide when we are prepared, correct?” She spun while pulling her wrist from his grasp, forcing him to let go.

“Yep,” Clint said, throwing a punch of his own, which she narrowly avoided. He took her momentary lack of balance to sweep her legs, causing her to fall.

“I do not understand why he has not yet given us a mission,” she grabbed his ankle and jumped to her feet, pulling his leg up with her and bringing him to the floor.

“He doesn’t think we’re prepared,” Clint said as he too rose to his feet, raising his guard to mirror hers.

“How are we unprepared? We have our equipment and have passed all of our tests,” she moved to kick him, but he grabbed her leg and yanked, causing her to stumble.

“He doesn’t think we’ve gotten enough practice in together.” He raised his fists, watching her.

“We are both experienced and have practiced for four hours every day for the past two weeks, how are we unprepared?” Natasha didn’t make an attack, instead lowering her fists. She was becoming increasingly anxious and impatient the longer they went without working. Clint imagined she didn’t even know what leisure time was.

“The whole point of practicing together is so that we can each understand how the other works in combat, their strengths and weaknesses, what we should learn from each other and what we should teach each other. Knowing your partner is essential.”

“That is what we have been doing,” she responded. “We have been practicing our moves on each other for hours on end and have both learned which moves to anticipate and improved our own skills. We have grown to know each other as is essential when working together.” Clint sighed and stepped off of the mats, picking up his water bottle and taking a long drink. Natasha followed him to the edge of the mat, clearly anxious for a response. “Clint?”

“That’s the problem, Natasha,” Clint turned towards her, rubbing his towel over the back of his neck. “I can’t get to know my partner’s combat skills and how to work with them when my partner is letting me win.” Natasha just looked at him blankly, knowing there was no point in lying but unsure of how to respond.

“I...I did not…” she struggled for words, “I did not wish to injure your feelings, should I win.” Since her arrival, Natasha had been extremely careful not to do anything she thought might upset him or anyone at S.H.I.E.L.D., in fear of punishment or being kicked out.

“I understand that,” he said calmly. Clint took a seat on the bench so that their conversation would seem more casual and she would feel less afraid of the potential consequences of her actions, which he knew must be running through her mind. “And I’m not upset, it’s just that I don’t want you to let me win, alright? You don’t learn anything from winning, and the whole point of training together is to improve one another. I want you to do your best, and if that means kicking my ass, I _want_ you to kick my ass, because then I’ll _learn_ something. I don’t care about winning, Natasha, all I care about is improving, because my enemies _won’t_ let me win. I’d like to be as good as I possibly can be, okay?” She gave a curt nod and Clint followed her back onto the mats.

“When did you…?” She asked, moving into her corner and turning towards him.

“A week ago, I guess, when we started sparring for real. I wasn’t sure, I wanted to make sure I was right before I said anything. The past few days I’ve been lowering my skills, moving slower, to see if you would lower yours to continue losing.” He moved back into his corner. “I think we’re warmed up enough, yeah? We can get to the real fight?” She nodded her agreement and raised her guard. Clint raised his own fists and attacked. Natasha stepped to the side to dodge his punch, grabbed his outstretched arm and yanked it while sweeping his ankle, making him fall. She jumped back when he tried to grab her ankle, but Clint took the momentary distance between them to jump to his feet. He was able to raise his guard in time to block her first blow, but as he punched towards her in retaliation, she moved up beside him, totally avoiding his fist. Natasha wrapped her arm around his bicep and her feet left the ground as she swung through the air behind him, the weight of her torso pressing against his back. Clint moved to grab her collar and throw her over his shoulder onto the ground, but before he knew what was happening, her legs were like a vice around his neck, choking the air from his throat and pulling him forward with the woman’s momentum. Clint landed face first on the mat, gasping for breath, while Natasha, who had somehow managed to be upside down while she choked him, landed lightly on her feet. He saw her knees bend to maintain her balance in preparation for a counterattack, but after a moment she straightened and walked over to him.

“Are you alright?” She asked quietly, kneeling beside him. Clint rolled onto his back and sat up on his elbows, coughing.

“Oh yeah,” he said, looking up at her. “That was awesome.”

“Did I injure you?” She asked. “Normally it is meant to snap the neck, I released the hold early before it would put any strain on your neck, I tried to be careful…”

“No, Natasha, seriously, I’m fine,” Clint replied earnestly, sitting up to support his words. “I’m just dazed, is all. Not because I hit my head,” he added, as she opened her mouth to ask, “just because I’ve never seen that move before and it’s pretty damn cool.”

“Do you wish to continue?”

“Yeah, of course,” he replied as he got to his feet, stretching before getting back into his fighting stance. Natasha backed over to her side of the mat, watching him carefully. Clint found his footing, gave the nod, and waited for her to attack.

 

They spent the next five hours training together in the gym, unaware of the time as it flew by. Natasha was finally fighting at full power, and despite spending an increasing amount of time lying spreadeagled on the ground with the wind knocked out of him, Clint was clearly pleased. It was only once the sun had fully risen that the two finally stepped off the mats, stretched to cool down, and began to collect their things.

 

“So?” Clint asked, turning to look at Natasha. He was sitting at one end of the bench, his towel wrapped around his neck, absentmindedly running his thumb over the ridges on his water bottle.

“So?” She echoed, raising an eyebrow. “So what?”

“How do you feel?”

“What do you mean?” She asked, puzzled.

“You’ve been really tightly wound, I was just wondering if a harder workout helps your stress levels.”

“Yes, I think so,” she said, after a moment’s consideration. She stood, slipping on her shoe and placing her foot on the bench as she leaned over to tie the laces.

“You haven’t been sleeping well,” Clint said casually, watching her out of the corner of his eye. She glance at him, then looked away.

“I do not need as much sleep as you.”

“I’m guessing it’d be better for you if you slept as much as me, but I’m not talking about your three-hour sleep pattern. I’m concerned about the medication.”

“Your S.H.I.E.L.D. physicians would not be giving it to me if it inhibited my abilities,” she said cooly, setting one foot down and placing the other on the bench.

“I’m not worried about your abilities, Natasha,” Clint said patiently. “Yes, it’s not abnormal for Agents to have sleep issues, in fact it’s a miracle some of us sleep as well as we do. What the docs don’t know, though, is now much it bothers you, the medications. A normal spy needing drugs to sleep is normal, but you? Natasha, you didn’t even want a local anesthetic for stitches.”

“I do not see how that is relevant--”

“I see how you react to stuff like drugs and needles, you’re afraid of them. For you to be taking sleeping medication every night, still...are you afraid that you can’t sleep without the drugs, or are you scared that you will?” Natasha stared at her laces for a few moments then set her foot on the ground, clearing her throat.

“I simply wish to gain an adequate amount of sleep so that I may operate fully,” she replied stiffly. Clint could tell that he had hit a nerve, and the connection he had felt to her as she finally opened up and displayed her real skill dissolved, replaced by her wall.

“Right,” he said, mentally chastising himself for his tactlessness. “I’m not questioning your abilities, Natasha, because clearly,” he gestured to the mats where she had been beating the shit out of him for the past several hours, “you’re doing great, I’m just concerned about you. That’s all, truly.”

“There is no need,” she said, tucking her water bottle into her bag and zipping it up. Natasha glanced around to make sure she had all of her things and then undid her messy bun, letting her long red hair cascade down her back. She twirled a strand between her fingers, making a noise that seemed halfway between a sigh of resignation and a grunt of discontent before combing her fingers through her mane and tugging it back up into a tidy ponytail.

“You can get it cut, ya know,” Clint suggested, rising to his feet and following her towards the door. He had, on several occasions, noticed her playing with her hair in an annoyed manner. “Kathy down in disguises is really excellent, or I could take you to a real salon if you prefer.”

“No, it’s alright,” she said, pushing open the door. As they exited the gym, Clint held the door open as a few other Agents slipped inside, giving them mumbled greetings and avoiding eye contact. Things had been tense to say the least around S.H.I.E.L.D. since Natasha’s arrival, especially amongst the other Agents. Clint had kept Natasha away from the others at first, but he knew he couldn’t hide her forever, and they had slowly been integrating into the population.

“Okay, just let me know if you change your mind. What have you got on your schedule today?” They stepped into the elevator at the end of the hall and Clint pressed their floor number. Three assistants who had been chatting before they stepped inside stopped abruptly and shuffled through the files they were holding, avoiding looking at them. They rode up eleven floors in uncomfortable silence before getting off, leaving the three to whisper quietly behind their retreating backs.

“I have another meeting with Agent Coulson in about an hour,” she responded, once the elevator doors had closed behind them.

“Gotcha. What are you two doing with all this time you’re spending together, anyway?” He asked, trying to smooth over the encounter. He knew that it was difficult for the others to see her as he did, given her record, but at the same time, the fact that everyone walked on eggshells around her wasn’t helping her transition.

“Going over how to use S.H.I.E.L.D. systems, protocols, etcetera.”

“Still?” He asked skeptically.

“They wish to ensure that I am adequately prepared to correctly handle any situation.”

“There’s preparation and then there’s overkill,” he muttered. They reached one of the lounges and Clint held the door open for Natasha, following her inside. Due to the extended length of their workout it was already morning, and there were more Agents than usual inside, who looked up when they entered.

“I don’t mind,” she replied, lowering her voice to be less obtrusive to the others. They set their bags down at an empty table and Clint busied himself by the coffee maker. Natasha folded her arms and leaned against the opposite counter, watching him.

“Are you learning new stuff or just repeating what you’ve learned?” He questioned.

“Practice is an ordinary part of training,” she replied calmly.

“Grilling you over and over is not practice, and it’s not necessary.”

“He is just being cautious.”

“He’s treating you like you can’t be trusted to do the right thing, it’s not right.”

“It’s understandable that he does not trust me, Clint,” she said patiently.

“How?” Before she could reply, the door opened and a tall, muscular man with blonde hair entered, tossing his bag onto a nearby couch. The man walked across the room and stopped just short of Natasha, looming over her.

“You’re in my way,” he said rudely.

“Sorry,” Natasha said, moving over to stand beside Clint. The man opened the cabinets that she had been standing in front of.

“You could just ask her to move politely, Williams,” Clint said conversationally, though there was something cold in his voice.

“Mind your own business, Barton,” he snapped, grabbing a granola bar from the shelf and shutting the cabinet with more force than necessary.

“Natasha is my business,” he replied calmly.

“Clint,” Natasha muttered. “Don’t.”

“Listen to your pet, Barton,” Williams said, his back turned.

“Romanoff is an Agent,” Clint said through gritted teeth. “You don’t have to like it, but you have to respect it. And her.”

“Respect?” He hissed, wheeling to face them. “Respect _her?_ Who do you think you are, Barton?” Williams took a step forward, but Clint stood his ground. “She’s a _murderer._ ”

“Everyone in this room is a murderer.”

“She killed one of ours,” Williams growled. “She killed my _friend_ , and you, some newbie Agent with a chip off his shoulder, bring her here, where he stood, and demand _respect?”_

“ _Yes_ ,” Clint said forcefully, straightening up. Natasha rested her hand on his shoulder and shook her head, clearly wanting him to back down.

“So what happened on your mission, huh? Did you fuck her, is that it? I mean, I’ve heard she was good, but how mindblowing did she have to be to turn you into a traitor?” Natasha tightened her grip on Clint’s arm to hold him back as he tried to lunge towards the other man.

“Clint, stop!” She snapped, grabbing his attention. “He’s not worth it. Just ignore him.” He stared at her for a few moments, his heart hammering inside his chest, and then nodded, taking a deep breath.

“Look at that,” Williams sneered, “she’s got you wrapped around her little finger. You should know better than to fall for a pretty face, I don’t care how good the sex is.”

“I didn’t fall for anything, and I’m not having sex with her,” Clint replied heatedly. “I recognized the difference between someone evil and someone being controlled. People can be brainwashed into doing things they don’t want to do, hurting people they don’t want to hurt, and the technology the KGB has is beyond anything we know about. I don’t expect _you_ to understand, you have an 11% civilian casualty rate on your missions, the highest of any Agent,” he spat with disdain. “The ends justify the means, right? Who cares how many innocent people die in the crossfire, as long as you get the job done quickly. I’m sorry that your friend died, and she is too, but this?” He gestured to their current situation, “this is your anger at the KGB for killing your friend and, like _always_ , you’re taking it out on the innocent,” he motioned to Natasha, “even though it wasn’t her choice, because it’s more convenient.” There was a second of silence, during which no one moved, and then Williams drew back and punched Clint square in the jaw.

  
The two men became a blur of flying limbs as they fought. They were severely limited by the confines of the kitchen, causing food and several cups to go flying as they were knocked from the counters, and the two mugs of coffee Clint had made smashed on the ground, spilling all over the floor. Williams was older and stronger than the Archer, and Clint, who was still sore from his earlier workout, was thrown to the floor with a thud and a grunt as the wind was knocked from his lungs. Natasha leapt in front of him and raised her fists as Williams took a step towards him.

“Leave him alone,” she said firmly. “I don’t want to fight you.”

“You may have this ignorant child fooled,” Williams growled, taking another step forwards. “But I’m not falling for your innocent victim act. I _know_ why you’re really here, and I’m not going to sit by and watch you bring down this organization from within. You won’t be running back to the KGB with our secrets and you _won’t_ be killing any more of my people, I’ll make sure of it. I know what you are, you soulless, murderous bitch.”

“Believe what you want,” she replied, standing her ground. “Just stop. I don’t want to fight you,” she repeated. The man gave a yell of anger and swung at her. Natasha blocked as he struck again and again, hitting and kicking with the intention of serious injury, to no avail. With each block his frustration grew and his attacks became more and more deadly, but still he was unable to land a single hit. With a roar of frustration he pulled out his sidearm and fired; Natasha ducked just in time and the bullet buried itself in the wall at head level. A few of the other Agents were on their feet now--none of them wanted to fight one of their own in her defense, but the use of deadly force had escalated the situation beyond comfort.

“HEY!” A yell from the doorway drew everyone’s attention. Agent Coulson strode across the room and yanked the gun out of Williams’s hand. “What the HELL is going on here?” Natasha raised her hands and took a few steps back from the other Agent, who was seething. After Coulson looked her over and turned his attention away, she bent and held out an arm, helping Clint to his feet.

“He started it,” the Archer said hoarsely. Under Coulson’s piercing stare a few onlookers nodded in confirmation, knowing the security footage wouldn’t lie. “Can we?” Clint asked, gesturing to himself and his partner, then nodding at the door. Coulson nodded and Clint took Natasha’s arm, steering her from the room. They sped down the corridor until they reached an empty bedroom, slipped inside, and shut the door behind them.

“Are you alright?” She asked, examining him. His lip was bleeding and his jaw was already starting to bruise, but otherwise he appeared to be fine.

“I’m alright,” he responded. “Are _you?_ ”

“Of course.” Clint crossed his arms and, recognizing his serious expression, she took a seat on the edge of the desk in preparation for his lecture.

“Why didn’t you fight him?”

“I did.”

“Why didn’t you fight _back?_ ”

“It was not necessary.”

“Not--not necessary? He tried to _shoot_ you, Natasha, he tried to shoot you and he aimed to _kill.”_

“And I ducked.”

“You have to defend yourself, Natasha, you told me you would.”

“I told you I would protect my life during our missions, that I would defend myself against our enemies. The same does not apply to our allies.”

“Anyone trying to kill you is your enemy, Natasha!”

“What do you think happens if I fight back, Clint?” She asked quietly. “What do you think happens when he goes to your superiors with bruises and broken bones and tells them that I am a menace, a danger? Whose side do you think they’ll choose?”

“It’s self defense!”

“That doesn’t matter. Your Board would only care that I was willing to injure another Agent, regardless of the circumstances.”

“They can’t just _treat_ you like this, like you’re the enemy,” Clint fumed. “He can’t get away with this!”

“They have a right to be angry,” Natasha muttered tiredly.

“That doesn’t give them the right to take it out on you, Natasha!”

“I killed his friend,” she said flatly. “I killed his _friend,_ Clint, and now I’m here, and I haven’t been punished for my crime. You cannot expect him to just accept that I am an Agent now, not when I took someone from him, not when your word is the only proof that I was not complicit with my crimes. They do not understand why I am here, why I am free, you can’t blame them for that.”

“Like hell I can’t,” he growled.

“They don’t believe that I was being controlled, they think I’m a threat--”

“But you’re not!”

“And the only proof is the word of a young Agent they hardly know.”

“They don’t have to believe me, they don’t have to listen to me, but they trust Fury and he _told_ them that you were brainwashed.”

“I killed someone he loved, someone a lot of them cared for. It doesn’t matter if I was brainwashed or not, I did it. His blood is on my hands and what I did…” she glanced at her hands, as if they were still dripping in the Agent’s blood. “What I did is unforgivable.”

“Listen to me, Natasha,” Clint said, stepping closer and meeting her gaze. “What you did does not justify his actions, it does not justify any of them attacking you. They may not ever forgive you, and they may hate you, but that doesn’t give them the right to hurt you. You need to believe that, you need to believe that you deserve to be here and you deserve to be treated like a human being, because how can they believe it if you don’t?” Natasha stared at him for a few seconds in silence, but was saved from having to respond by a text alert. She pulled out her phone and then stood, walking to the door.

“Agent Coulson has canceled our appointment. I am going to return to the apartment,” she said shortly. Before Clint could even open his mouth to respond, she had gone.

 

***

 

“You wanted to see me?” Clint said, peering through the open door into Fury’s office.

“Come in,” the Director said. He shuffled the papers he was holding and set them aside as Clint fell into the chair opposite him. “You’ve caused me quite the headache today, Barton.”

“He started it, sir.”

“I’m aware of that, but you let him get to you.”

“He can’t treat her like that!”

“We knew this would happen,” Fury said patiently. “They don’t trust your judgement, they don’t have any reason to believe she’s not still an enemy Agent who has fooled us into believing she’s changed, an enemy Agent who killed their friend.”

“They don’t have to believe me, but they have to believe _you._ You told them that she’s one of us now, you can’t just let him off the hook because they have history. _Tell_ me you’re punishing him.”

“He’s been suspended for a week. After that I’ll be sending him on a long undercover mission.”

“A week? A _week?_ He tried to kill her!”

“She wasn’t injured.”

“How do you expect the others to leave her alone if you don’t punish him?”

“He is suspended, and it has been made clear that any further incidents will result in more severe punishment. I know you want revenge, but I can’t punish one of my senior Agents for trying to get his, not when she’s unharmed, not after what she did. This is an extremely delicate situation, Barton. If the consequences are too severe he’ll become a martyr and other Agents will stand up for him. If it comes down to her or them, you know what the Board will decide.”

“So your plan is to what, hope for the best? Leave her unprotected? Fury, she didn’t even fight back because she didn’t want to give the Board a reason to take her out. I thought she was crazy, because the organization I know would _never_ punish a victim for protecting themselves, but she’s right, isn’t she? That’s not what I signed up for, that’s not the type of organization I want to _work_ for.”

“What would you have me do?” Fury asked in an aggravated tone. “Do you want me to give them a reason to rebel? Right now none of them will go to the Board about her because she hasn’t done anything wrong that they haven’t already excused, they have no leverage. If I extend Williams’s suspension, fire him, or inflict any further punishment, she’ll be responsible for the “wrongful” punishment of a fellow Agent. If enough of the other Agents stand in his defense, which you know they will, the Board will have no choice but to terminate her in fear of losing control of our people.”

“So we just sit and wait and hope for the best, that’s your plan,” Clint said flatly, crossing his arms.

“With time, things will change. The longer she’s here, the more work she does for us, the more they’ll grow to trust her.”

“And I’m just supposed to hide her until it’s safe for her to exist without being murdered for it?”

“If you hide her you’ll appear guilty. They don’t like her, but most won’t act on their feelings. There are many who believe she was brainwashed, but still struggle to accept her due to what she did. They mourn his loss, and even though they believe she was being controlled, it is not easy for them to separate her from their feelings towards the person who killed someone they loved. With time, the distinction will grow clearer, and I foresee a future in which she has friends here, and respect. For those that do act out, they may say hurtful things but I think it’s unlikely they’ll physically attack her, especially after Williams, and after seeing her fight.”

“I finally got her to really fight me,” Clint said, after a reluctant pause. He still wanted to argue, but it was clear that Fury’s mind was set on the matter.

“And?”

“I wonder if she wasn’t holding back when she worked for the KGB. What we had on her doesn’t really do justice to her abilities. You sent me in under the impression that I had about an 80 percent chance of beating her but let me tell you, I definitely didn’t win 80 percent of the time we fought today. Williams is a senior Agent with loads of experience and he couldn’t land a single hit on her, _and_ she managed not to injure him while defending herself, which takes about as much skill as beating him would.”

“So you believe that you’re ready?” Fury asked. Clint had told the Director not to give them an assignment until he broke through to Natasha and got her to fight for real.

“Yeah,” he said after some consideration, “maybe working will help, it’ll show the other Agents that she’s on our side and she’ll certainly be happy to work, all this sitting around is driving her crazy.”

“How is she?”

“She’s…” he trailed off, struggling to find words, “alone,” he said finally. “Not in the sense that she’s physically alone, because I’m there for her whenever she wants me and even when she doesn’t, but...there’s no one in the world who can understand what she’s going through. She’s isolated and confused, she tries to hide it but I can tell she doesn’t understand a lot of what’s happening. This world is a better one than the one she grew up in but it’s entirely foreign, it’s like we speak a different language than her and it’s difficult to teach her because I don’t speak her language, no one does. At S.H.I.E.L.D. she’s completely isolated by the way people are treating her, and out in the real world she’s just...lost and confused. She’s one hell of an Agent but she has never...she’s never had an ice cream sundae or binge watched a tv series or bought a goddamn pair of jeans. Until I learn her language, until I understand the world she was raised in, she’ll remain on the outside looking in. I want to help her, but she’s so confused and humiliated and afraid to admit she doesn’t understand that she won’t ask for help, I,” he shrugged, “I don’t know what to do. No matter how hard I try to get to her, there’s always a barrier, and she’s always on the other side...alone.”

“Well,” Fury spoke, after a long while. “Can you communicate well enough to do your jobs?”

“Yeah,” the Archer replied, nodding.

“And you’re sure about this, working with her?”

“Yes,” he responded.”

“A hundred percent sure?”

“No,” Clint said honestly. “But I wouldn’t be a hundred percent sure working with any of the other Agents either. I’m confident in our ability to complete our missions and I’m confident with her watching my back.”

“Good,” Fury said shortly. “I’ll find you two a mission. It’s late, go home.” Clint sighed and stood, walking towards the door. He paused at the threshold, glancing back at him.

“Fury?”

“Hm?”

“How long will it before things change?”

“It will take as long as it takes.” Clint raised an eyebrow, waiting for Fury to elaborate. The man had returned to examining a pile of documents in front of him.

“You know that’s a shit answer, right?” Clint asked, when it became apparent that the Director had nothing more to add.

“Go home, Barton,” Fury muttered. The Archer did not move and Fury sighed, looking up from his work. “You take it one step at a time and you keep walking until you get where you need to go, however long that takes. Today you got her to fight you, tomorrow you go on your mission and fight together. Keep it up and she’ll become a great Agent. If you want her to change and you want the others to see her for what she truly is, I think you know what you need to do. She can’t become what you want her to become alone. Things won’t become what you want them to as long as she’s on the outside looking in, and the only way to change things is for you to break through to her, for her to let you in. For now, we’ll get you two working and see if that helps.” The Archer continued to linger. “I’m out of wise words,” Fury said, exasperated, “go get some sleep. Go!” Clint sped from the room, leaving Fury to his paperwork, and headed home. When he arrived, he found Natasha’s bedroom door shut. When he knocked and she told him to enter, he found her sitting on the bed reading a large book. He tried to start a conversation but she quietly asked that she not be disturbed and with a sigh, Clint left and shut the door behind him. The Archer looked around at the apartment, trying to decide if he’d rather eat or sleep, and noticed that the room was untouched. Natasha had appeared perfectly at ease but clearly, after coming home, she had shut herself in her room and remained there the entire day. He raised his fist to knock once more at her door, but slowly lowered it, realizing that there was nothing he could say that would help. With a dejected sigh he disappeared into his room and collapsed on the bed. He laid there, staring up at the ceiling, suddenly wide awake. He imagined he could hear the pages of the book turning, and imagined they would be turning all night. On the other side of the wall, Natasha pulled the covers tighter around her and focused intently on the words of the page in front of her, hoping that if she tried hard enough, they would drown out the flashes of memories that threatened to consume her, the people, places, and blood. The next morning the two spies would leave their rooms with all the appearances of well-rested people, but that night, neither slept a wink.

 

***


	6. CHAPTER 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If there is anyone still following this story, I am so sorry for taking so long with the next chapter! I got hit with some serious writer's block, and how to make the first mission special, and eventually decided that a chapter was better than no chapter, so here goes. I will try to update with chapter 7 within a few weeks. Once we get to chapter 8ish, I've got about 2 chapters planned out so they should go fast.

***

“Are you sure, Natasha?” Clint asked. “Are you sure that you’re ready for this?”

“Yes,” she responded, without looking at him.

“You don’t have to be,” he said quietly. “You don’t have to do this.”

“I’m sure.”

“It’s just that I want you to be ready.” Clint could have sworn he saw her roll her eyes. Natasha lowered her binoculars and turned back to face him.

“Are you regretting clearing me?” She asked.

“No--”

“Are you unsure about my loyalties and reliability on this mission?”

“No, of course not--”

“Then why are you questioning my resolve for the fourth time today?”

“Well...we’re going to have to kill people in there,” he said, jerking his head in the direction of the facility.

“Yes?”

“I just…” Clint sighed. “I want to make sure you don’t feel like you’re just trading in the KGB for another organization asking you to blindly kill for them, because you don’t have to do anything for SHIELD missions that you don’t want to do. You don’t have to do things you don’t want to do because you think it’s the only way to clean your slate. It’s not.” She stared at him for a moment.

“The KGB did not ask,” she replied. “And I’m not blind,” she added, raising the binoculars again and looking at the building. “These are bad people. They profit from other people’s pain, they turn fights into war, they work to support dictators and cruelty and oppression. They do not just deal arms in warzones, as if that is not bad enough, they create new high-tech and highly destructive weaponry and cater to the wrong people. They will keep making deadlier and deadlier weapons which will end up in the wrong hands over and over. They need to be stopped, and that is something I can do. I can play a part in saving the lives that will be lost to their weapons if we don’t do this. I can do something good.”

“Okay,” Clint said, conceding. “But just remember that you get to make the choices about what you do and don’t want to do. Whatever you want, we’ll do.” Natasha nodded curtly. “So,” he asked, raising his own pair of binoculars and focusing them on the building in the distance. “Ideas?”

“We will need to take out their means of escape first. If just one person gets away with their plans, they will be capable of simply reproducing their weapons elsewhere.”

“The hangar bays,” Clint said, focusing on them.

“Yes.”

“I still wish we could just blow the place,” he muttered.

“That would be inadvisable,” Natasha replied shortly.

“Aren’t they supposed to build these places far enough away from populated areas that they can safely test their weapons?”

“That is what their testing site is for. Obviously it must be far enough away from here that the facility is also safe from the blasts. Unfortunately all of the completed explosives are here, ready to be shipped out. One small explosion…”

“They really have  _ that much  _ explosive material here? We couldn’t even blow it up from a plane and fly away?”

“Our intelligence indicates that the materials currently in this facility might explode with several times the force of a nuclear bomb.” Clint lowered his binoculars to stare at her in disbelief, then looked back.

“Imagine going to work every day knowing you could, like, light a match and blow up half the country.”

“This is a large country, this facility is not large enough to house any amount of explosives that would destroy half of it.”

“I was exaggerating to make a point.”

“I see.”

“It’s just, who the hell houses so much firepower 15 miles from the nearest town? This is Canada, they could have easily built the place so far from civilization that--”

“Can we focus?”

“There’s nothing wrong with chatting, Natasha,” Clint said easily. “We’re not on a schedule, we don’t have to be back at a certain time. We can do our jobs well and still be relaxed doing it.” Her jaw twitched, and he sighed. “But fine, what do you think?”

“We need to keep our presence hidden as long as possible.”

“Well there’s not exactly any cover between us and here,” he responded, gesturing to the wide open land, blanketed in snow. “We’re so far away just to have the cover of this ridge that I can barely see through these binoculars, and they’ve got a huge range. I think they’re  _ probably _ gonna notice us just walking up to their front door.”

“Why build it 15 miles from the town?” She asked.

“...Supplies? Maybe they don’t want outsiders coming in to ship food and stuff so they do it themselves? A lot of them live on base, right?”

“Three cars have come and gone since we have been here. Two of them were personal vehicles but there was a truck, and I do not believe they were moving materials in it. It wasn’t armored.”

“So we go to town and wait for their next supply run, then hitch a ride?”

“Yes.”

“Fine,” Clint said, rising to his feet and stretching. “But we’re waiting inside and I’m getting some coffee or something because I’m fucking freezing. Canada in December,” he huffed, turning and walking stiffly back to the car. Natasha followed him. They stopped briefly once they were back on the main road leading away from the facility to carefully place a camera and motion sensor so they could monitor traffic in and out of the building, then made their way to the nearby town to wait.

***

The two settled down in a coffee shop on Main Street, next to the most popular grocery store in town, and waited for their laptop to alert them to movement outside the facility. Clint was relaxed and quite pleased to be out of the cold, but Natasha sat stiffly and kept glancing at the laptop as if willing it to beep.

“Here,” Clint said, setting a plate of donuts in front of her and falling into the chair across the table.

“I’m not hungry.”

“C’mon, there’s no place better than Canada to have your first donut,” he said, waving one enthusiastically before taking a bite.

“Clint--”

“Natasha, just try one, you haven’t eaten all day,” he said in a more serious tone. “The base is covered, alright? As soon as a car leaves the facility, we’ll get an alert,” he gestured to the laptop. “And just in case, we’ll also get alerts on our cellphones. It’s very unlikely that they’ll make another supply run today, especially since it’s already evening, and staring at the computer isn’t gonna make it happen any sooner. Your anxiety is giving me anxiety, and I’m not an anxious guy, so that’s saying something.” Natasha bit her lip.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It’s not your fault how you were conditioned to feel, I just want you to understand that you don’t  _ have  _ to feel like this anymore. I’m not saying it’ll happen overnight, but if you try, I can help you get there.” Natasha picked up a donut covered in rainbow sprinkles and examined it.

“Your missions are...always like this?” She asked tentatively.

“There’s usually a bit of downtime, yeah. Once I’m prepared, I’m just waiting for my opportunity, but marks don’t follow my schedule, I have to wait on them. There’s no point going through the details over and over after I’ve already got them down and besides,” he shrugged, taking a bite of his donut, “things hardly ever go entirely to plan, why obsess about it?” Natasha had no response, so she took a bite of her donut. “What do you think?” Clint asked enthusiastically.

“It’s good,” she said, giving the same assessment as she had given all of the food he’d introduced her to thusfar. At Clint’s disappointed look she added, “...it’s very sweet.”

“Well, do you like sweet or not?” He asked. “Cause not everyone has a sweet tooth like me, and that’s okay. Also, there’s tons of different types,” he gestured to the plate of donuts. “Some of them have jelly or cream filling, different flavors and frosting, different ingredients...personally I think breads are one of the hardest things to bake because there’s just so many possible textures. You can get all of the exact same measurements that went into this,” he held up his second donut, “but if you mix it wrong or add the ingredients in the wrong order, it turns out entirely different. Plus, donuts are hard because you’ve got to deep fry them.”

“What is difficult about that?”

“Well it’s messy, you need a shit ton of oil, and the oil is super hot so if you get any on yourself you can get bad burns.”

“Have you burned yourself with hot oil before?”

“The first time I made donuts,” he said solemnly. “I’d never deep fried anything before and I was cooking in a new environment, and I accidentally splashed hot oil all over my hand and forearm. I was just starting out at SHIELD and I couldn’t shoot for a week.”

“Why not?”

“I had bad burns on my fingers, I couldn’t pull back a bowstring.” Natasha nodded, but Clint could tell by the way her eyebrow had raised slightly that she was confused as to why his superiors would let him take off work because it caused him pain.

They sat in the coffee shop for another hour as the sun set, Clint trying to distract Natasha with random conversation while Natasha did her best to listen and not glance at the laptop. By eleven o’clock, Clint had polished off four donuts, Natasha had called the jelly filling of her second donut “interesting,” and the two had gathered their things and left the shop.

“Well, I guess we go back to the hotel and wait, yeah?” Clint asked, yawning. It had been a long day, driving up from New York. Natasha had spent so much time pouring over their files and mission plan that Clint had taken her up on her offer to drive after a few hours just so she wouldn’t be able to keep re-reading the intel when he was sure she had it all memorized from the first reading.

“Yes,” Natasha replied, giving the grocery shop one last and almost wistful look, and followed him down the road to the tiny little hotel where they were staying. They returned to their room and Clint collapsed on his bed while Natasha moved over to the window and peered outside.

“Are you going to be able to get any sleep?” Clint asked.

“I will not disturb you.”

“That’s not why I was asking,” he replied, propping himself up on his elbow to look at her.

“I do not know,” she replied honestly. Natasha turned back to look at him, folding her arms and leaning against the windowsill. “I will be capable of performing my job regardless.”

“I don’t doubt it. Sleep is important for other reasons too, though,” he said, yawning again. After not sleeping the night before and traveling all day, he was tired enough to fall asleep already. Natasha, sensing this, picked up her laptop. She opened it and connected to their surveillance system so she would be alerted to any movement.

“I will sit in the lounge until I am ready to sleep, I do not think I will disturb you when I return.”

“Alright,” Clint said, too tired to argue. “Just...try not to be too anxious, alright? Things will happen when they happen.” Natasha gave a curt nod, gathered up her computer bag and a few other things, and left the room. Clint got ready for bed quickly, checked that the sound on his laptop was on so he’d hear the alert, and climbed into bed. As he was drifting off, he wondered if Natasha would sit up all night staring at her laptop, or return to the room and get some sleep. She did not return.

***

The laptop did not begin to beep until noon the next day. By that time, Natasha was so tightly wound that Clint was almost as grateful as she was for their mission to begin, just so she would finally be at ease. Natasha got ready and was dashing out the hotel door in less than 60 seconds, a rather disgruntled Clint scrambling to catch up.

“You know,” he said, as he reached the parking lot of the grocery store. “The drive from where the sensors picked them up to here will take them 15 minutes, right?”

“It is better to be prepared,” she replied. Clint tugged the straps of his backpack a little tighter and slipped on his gloves as they stood there. The two of them were wearing ordinary winter coats over their clothes and had to carry their supplies in backpacks, giving them the desired appearance of tourists, which the townspeople were accustomed to, due to their little town being on the road between New York City and Montreal. Clint pulled Natasha into the store and they browsed the shelves, giving all the appearances of American tourists fascinated by Canadian products, until a large white van pulled into the parking lot. They waited for two men to enter the store before slipping back outside, unseen. It took the men inside the shop 30 minutes to buy their groceries and return to the parking lot, then another 5 to load their things. Finally, they got into the front seats and the spies sprinted forward, unlocked the back of the truck, and ducked inside just as the engine roared to life and they pulled onto the road. They set their backpacks down and began pulling out their equipment.

“Cool,” Clint said quietly, after determining that the drivers wouldn’t be able to hear them.

“What?” Natasha looked up at him.

“I hadn’t seen your equipment yet,” he said, gesturing to her. Over the course of the past few weeks Clint had seen Natasha train for several hours each day, but this was the first time he had seen her fully equipped for battle. S.H.I.E.L.D. had designed her clothing, a sleek black catsuit that clung tightly to her body but was made of the same ultra-strong material as his armor, specially designed to resist all types of damage as well as woven to help stem the flow of blood from any wounds they might acquire. “What’re those?” He asked, nodding to her arms. She wore some type of technological bracers on her forearms.

“They’re electric.” She tapped her finger against her palm and blue electricity crackled along her arms.

“Like tasers?”

“More powerful. There’s a stun setting and a kill setting.” She responded, kneeling down and withdrawing handguns and ammunition from her bag. She strapped the guns to her thighs as Clint screwed his bow together and slung his quiver of arrows over his shoulder. They rode the rest of the way in silence, simply stretching and making sure all of their weapons were in order. After about 14 minutes Clint carefully slid open the back of the truck and fired an arrow at the gate as it closed behind them. It hit the lock and stuck, a small crackle of electricity signifying that it had successfully caused the gate to short out, preventing anyone who might try to leave from doing so. He closed the door and the two of them slid behind some boxes in the back of the truck, waiting. A minute later they pulled to a stop and the engine died. They heard the sound of car doors slamming and a moment later, the door to the back of the truck slid up. The two men were on the ground in an instant, one with an arrow and the other with a bullet through his head. They quickly dragged the bodies into the back of the truck, taking their radios so they could monitor base communications and activating their own comm link so they could communicate. With a nod, the spies split up and swept the large garage, which contained two dozen personal vehicles and three trucks, but no additional people. Clint climbed onto the roof of a jeep in order to peer out a tall window.

“I’ve got sights on the hangar bay,” he said. Natasha climbed up beside him.

“Can you take them out from here?”

“No,” he shook his head. “The door’s closed and there’s two guards outside, could be more inside. I want to get it done quietly.”

“Shall we split up?”

“Yeah, you go ahead, I’ll meet up with you in a few,” he responded, unlatching the window and pushing it open. Natasha leapt lightly from the vehicle and ran across the garage to the door. She swiped the driver’s keycard to unlock the door and with one last glance at Clint, who was lowering himself out of the window, she slipped inside.

***

Natasha killed the man standing inside the doorway before he even had time to look shocked by her sudden appearance, dragged his body into the garage, and set off down the hallway. S.H.I.E.L.D. hadn’t been able to access full schematics of the base, but from their knowledge they were able to use common sense to determine the location of the control center, which Natasha headed towards. Her task was simple: obtain all of the information within their databanks and prevent anyone involved from escaping. Once she and Clint had secured the building, a team of S.H.I.E.L.D. scientists would be sent to investigate. It was an easy mission, but Clint had assured her that Fury was just starting off with simpler missions, “testing the water”, and that their assignments would increase in difficulty with time. Natasha was used to being thrown into the deep end but was doing her best to adjust. She met another four guards on her way, but disposed of them quickly, and eventually reached a closed metal door, which was locked. Natasha pulled out her lockpicks and opened the door. A man leapt at her the second she entered the room, wrapping his arm around her throat and attempting to squeeze the air from her lungs, no doubt in an effort to capture her alive. Natasha slammed her elbow into his ribs, causing him to cough and splutter for breath, then grabbed him by the collar and threw him over her shoulder. Before the man had even hit the ground at her feet Natasha was flying towards the second man, kicking the weapon from his grasp and delivering an electrically-charged punch straight to his solar plexus. With a jerk, he too collapsed. Natasha closed and locked the door behind her before bending over the main computer keyboard and getting to work.

***

Clint landed carefully on the snow-covered ground and immediately nocked an arrow, firing it in the direction of the hangar bay. One of the two guards standing outside the bay dropped, and before the other could look around for the source, he too had an arrow through his skull. Clint glanced around to see if there was anyone else nearby, then sprinted through the snow to where the guards lay. Clint dragged the bodies around the corner where they wouldn’t be so easily spotted, took a keycard from one of the fallen men, and opened the door to the hangar bay. It was dark inside, but Clint could hear the sounds of people moving around further inside. He crouched down behind a small plane and crept slowly forward, a silenced pistol loaded with tranquilizers in one hand.

“Is that you, Fred?” A voice called from across the room. “I told you, man, it doesn’t matter how cold it is, you’ve got to keep watch.” He said. “Can’t handle the cold,” he said more quietly, taking to someone near him, who murmured in agreement. Clint fired twice, listening to the two thuds in the dark before poking his head out from around the plane. He tied and gagged them quickly, found the lightswitch, and went about ripping apart all of the wiring within the planes, then closing the panels so they would appear normal. When he was finished, which took a rather short amount of time, Clint pressed a finger to his comlink.

“How’re you doing?” He asked, in German.

“I’m in the control center,” Natasha replied.

“Run into any trouble?”

“There are very few guards here. They really should have more security,” she said, “considering what they do here.”

“How’s the download going?”

“It’s about 50% complete. What’s your status?”

“All done here, no one’s going anywhere. I’ve got two dead and two tied up and sedated, but they won’t wake for a good while, I’ll let them be someone else’s problem. Have you got the schematics for this place, personnel info?”

“There are 53 scientists on staff in this facility and, minus the guards we’ve already taken care of, 36 guards.”

“Jeez, have they heard of overkill?”

“These are very dangerous explosives.”

“Sure,” Clint replied, rolling his eyes. “Where are they all right now?”

“There are 2 guards at the gate, three on perimeter watch, two in each of the 8 labs here, one at the elevator on this floor and one below, 5 outside the vault where they store the majority of their products, 4 inside the vault, the other 4 are patrolling the halls. As far as I can tell, all of the scientists are in the laboratories.”

“And are the labs completely isolated, with their own ventilation and everything?”

“Yes.”

“Have you got the door controls?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, I say we go with gas. I’ll get to the roof and get into their ventilation systems, you lock the doors, then we meet up and take out the rest together. We’ve got enough gas to give them a second round to keep them down until the troops show up.”

“Just tell me when.” Clint left the hangar bay and dashed around the side of the main building, carefully avoiding being seen by the guards patrolling the fence. When he neared the wall, Clint raised his bow and shot the two border guards within sight, then quickly nocked another arrow and shot a grappling hook onto the roof of the building. He held on tightly as he was lifted into the air and deposited on the roof, where he crouched low as he approached a good vantage point. The third perimeter guard was just a spot in the distance on the opposite side of the building, pacing back and forth, but Clint took aim and fired an arrow in his direction. In his peripheral vision, the Archer saw the dot fall to the ground, but he was already moving away, towards where he knew the labs to be. As he had suspected, their were 16 large vents on the roof above the labs, used to let out smoke should an explosion occur.

“These lead right into the labs?” He asked softly.

“Yes.”

“Is there a grate at the bottom?”

“Presumably. Where are you?”

“Above the South-East lab. I don’t want this thing to go off above a grate, all of the gas will just come out this end.”

“Look down the vent.” Clint did as he was told, but saw only blackness.

“There’s some sort of cover blocking the vent, like a flue.”

“Look now.” He did so, and could see light from the lab shining through a grate.

“Alright,” he whispered. “Open them all, then on my mark, close them and lock down each lab.”

“Affirmative. I am prepared.”

“Lock lab 1,” he said, dropping a gas canister into the pipe. Without waiting to make sure, Clint sprinted towards the next vent. “Lab 2,” he said, before moving on. He continued dashing from vent to vent until he had succeeded in gassing each of the 16 labs. Trace amounts of the gas were getting through to the roof, but Clint simply moved away, hopping onto the roof of the garage and swinging down through the window he had opened.

“Security cameras show that everyone in the labs is unconscious. The 16 guards are accounted for, but I’m only seeing 49 scientists. 4 of them must have been elsewhere.”

“Is it possible they’re not here?” Clint asked, making his way across the garage.

“Why would they not be at work?”

“I dunno, family time? Days off?” He stepped over a body Natasha had left there and opened the door to the main building.

“What?”

“You know, some people take their vacations on weekdays when businesses need people to work on the weekends.”

“I see. Two scientists are currently in the vault, I do not see the other two on any of the security cameras. Perhaps they are...on vacation.” The door opened ahead of him and Clint readied his weapon, but it was just Natasha slipping out of the room. She tucked a flash drive into her belt, nodded to him, and they moved off down the corridor. Clint slung his bow over his shoulder and pulled out a gun, one loaded with bullets this time. The first of the patrolling guards they encountered was caught unawares as he rounded a corner, and Natasha hit him so hard that he slammed against the wall with a loud crack, and slid down it unconscious. Clint tied and gagged him, and they moved on. The next guard spotted them as they turned a corner and reached for his sidearm, but Clint was faster, and the man dropped before his fingers had closed around the handle of his gun. The third and fourth patrolling guards, having recognized the sound of a silenced gunshot, were prepared when the two spies rounded the corner. They knocked the guns out of their hands and one went after each of them. Natasha was lifted into the air by her throat and slammed into the wall, while Clint took a hit to the face hard enough to knock him down and make his head spin. He rolled out of the way as the man attempted to kick him in the ribs, but in an instant there was a gun pointed at his face and a boot pressed against his neck. Before Clint could move, his attacker gave a jolt and fell forwards, a hole in his head. Natasha lowered her gun and offered him a hand up, which he took. “The guards become progressively more experienced the closer we get to the vault,” she said. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah, thanks.” Natasha moved off down the hall, and Clint followed. They were prepared for the elevator guard and took him out before he noticed they were there, then proceeded to take the stairs down to the lower level, so as not to alert the other elevator guard to their presence. Clint shot the second guy the moment they emerged on the lower level.

“Five,” Natasha mouthed, gesturing towards the end of the hallway, where the hall turned a corner. Clint nodded and they crept towards the corner, guns raised. Clint could hear two sets of footsteps pacing up and down the corridor in front of them, and three others breathing quietly, indicating that they had been standing still for a while. He relayed this to Natasha through a series of hand gestures, then indicated that he would go right. She nodded, and they rounded the corner.

Natasha managed to fire a shot and kill one of the guards instantly, but Clint had emerged nearly nose to nose with one of the pacing guards, who knocked the gun from his grasp before he could fire. In turn, Clint kicked the man’s weapon out of his hand and it went flying across the room as he slammed a fist into the man’s face, causing him to stagger. He regained himself quickly and knocked Clint’s arm aside as he tried to wrap it around the guard’s neck. The guard kicked the Archer in the groin and he crumpled to the ground, but took the opportunity to pull a hidden knife out of the other man’s boot and stab him in the thigh. The man gave a howl of pain and kicked Clint in the ribs, sending him rolling across the floor, but Clint made sure to pull the knife out of the man’s leg as he went. As always, his aim had been perfect; the knife had severed his femoral artery, and the guard collapsed as his blood flowed freely. Clint climbed laboriously to his feet, his ribs aching, and looked around just in time to see Natasha snap the neck of the last remaining guard, and lean down to retrieve her gun. She stepped over the pile of bodies surrounding her and picked up Clint’s gun as well, offering it to him. “Are you injured?” She asked.

“I’m fine, you?” She raised her eyebrow slightly in reply, then looked at the heavy metal door to the vault.

“I believe any vault designed to contain an explosion of great magnitude is likely to be soundproof, but it is possible they heard that.” 

“How do you want to do this?”

“We should not fire weapons within that room, to be safe. There are four guards and two scientists. The scientists will likely attempt to run, or hide, they do not have backgrounds in combat. We must kill them.”

“You gonna be okay? I know you’re not much of a fan of scientists He noticed Natasha’s grip tighten slightly on her weapon.

“I am fine,” she said somewhat stiffly.

“Well, I suppose there’s no stealthy way to do this,” Clint said, grabbing the wheel to open the vault and spinning it. He stepped back, wincing at the heavy scraping of the locks. The door swung open and the two ducked down as a hail of bullets flew at them.

“Jesus, do you want to blow up?” Clint yelled over the noise. One of the bullets ricocheted off the wall, but luckily struck the door to the vault, rather than flying into the vault itself. He looked up to see a somewhat startled expression on a guard’s face as he stopped firing. Clearly, the danger of firing within a vault filled with explosives had not occurred to him. “ _ Really? _ ” Clint said, rising to his feet. He punched the nearest guard in the face and he dropped his weapon with a bang as it went off. “REALLY?” Clint yelled.

Natasha grabbed the nearest guard’s gun and flipped the safety before tugging it from his grasp. He too had paused in consideration of his actions but had recovered more quickly and thrown himself at the spy. A gun went off on the other side of the hallway, but Natasha was too occupied to pay it much thought. She blocked every blow the man threw at her but slipped in blood, giving him the opportunity to grab her shoulders and slam her against the wall. She kicked him between the legs but he grabbed her hair as he fell to one knee, throwing her to the ground. Natasha rolled, knocking his feet out from under him and leaping to her feet. Before he had a chance to stand, she had snapped his neck. An arm wrapped around her throat from behind and she was lifted off her feet by her neck, the air choked from her lungs. She wrapped her hands around his forearm and kicked off the wall, swinging over him with enough force to break his grip. She wrapped her legs around his neck and brought him to the ground as she had done with Clint in training, but this time she wasn’t being gentle, and snapped his neck too. Clint had just finished off his second opponent as well, and had risen to his feet just in time to trip a man in a white coat as he tried to dash by them. Natasha grabbed the second scientist by the arm and he fell to the ground. He got to his knees slowly and then suddenly slashed at Natasha with a knife, barely scraping her shin. Natasha grabbed his wrist and caused him to stab himself in the neck, then stepped back as he fell. For a moment she stared at the crumpled man in a lab coat, memories of the fantasies about killing the Red Room scientists she had had resurfacing, then she turned away and waited for Clint past the corner of the hallway, where she couldn’t see the body.

“Hey,” Clint said, rounding the corner. “You okay?”

“Yes,” Natasha said. She considered it and then looked up at him. “Yes,” she repeated, nodding.

“Okay, good--” a drop of blood hit the floor. “Natasha, are you bleeding?” He circled to face her. “Natasha, you’ve been shot! Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I,” Natasha glanced down at the hole in her abdomen. The blood blended in with the black of her outfit, and her uniform was stemming the flow and absorbing so much of the blood that only a few drops managed to fall. “I guess, with all the gunshots going off and the fighting I didn’t notice.”

“When did this happen?” Clint asked anxiously, checking for an exit wound and finding one.

“I’m not sure…” Natasha thought back, remembering her opponent glancing at her stomach and faltering. “I think when the gun went off.”

“We’ve got to get you to a doctor.”

“No!” She said. Clint had sat her down on the floor with her back against the wall. Natasha felt fine, but was allowing him to do it. “I think…” she ran her fingers over the hole. “I think it missed my vital organs.”

“Natasha,” Clint said, but Natasha had reached into the backpack on his back and pulled out the small field medical kit from S.H.I.E.L.D. She turned on a small black device and held it over her wound. A sensor beam swept over it and the display loaded.

“See?” She handed it to him.

“These things aren’t 100%, Natasha!”

“Please, Clint. Please.” The Archer sighed and rubbed a hand over his face.

“Fine, but I’m taking a look when we get back to town and if there’s so much as a hint…” she nodded and allowed him to help her to her feet.

“What’s left?” She asked.

“I’ll call S.H.I.E.L.D. and drop the slow release canisters in the labs, then I’ll take out the gate guards on our way out.”

“Alright.”

“We’ll just take one of their jeeps, we’ll be out of here right away.”

 

***

Clint wrapped up at the base as fast as he could, and within no time he was pushing open the door to the hotel room and helping Natasha inside. Natasha sat down on her bed while Clint pulled out the bigger med kit. In truth, she felt fine. She had been shot many times before, and blood loss was usually her biggest problem, so she was pleased with the uniform S.H.I.E.L.D. had made for her for keeping blood loss to a minimum.

“Could you,” Clint gestured to her catsuit as he pulled a chair over the bed. Natasha unzipped it down to her waist. The wound began to bleed a little when her suit was removed, but for the most part the bleeding was minimal. “Sorry, is it okay if I,” Clint gestured to her stomach. He worried that she might feel uncomfortable in just her bra, but modesty wasn’t part of Natasha’s training, in fact she’d been conditioned not to be. She was more concerned with some of the tools in the med kit, fragmented images of similar tools being used on her crossing her mind. Clint, sensing this, removed what he thought he’d need and closed the kit. 

“Go ahead,” she said, relaxing somewhat. Clint had only pulled out supplies to clean and bandage her wound, which were less triggering for her.

“You really scared me,” he said as he cleaned the wound.

“I am sorry, it was not intentional.”

“You just...didn’t feel it?”

“Have you never obtained an injury while fighting and had too much adrenaline to feel it?”

“I’ve had enough adrenaline to fight despite it and to numb a lot of pain, but I’ve never been shot and not  _ realized  _ it right away, much less a few minutes later.”

“I am usually made aware by the sensation of blood soaking my body and dizziness associated with blood loss.”

“But not the  _ pain _ ?”

“It,” Natasha said, then sighed and shook her head.

“No, what? What were you going to say?”

“In order to be successful during my missions, I could not allow any injury to interfere with my abilities, so I practiced under those conditions, as you practiced blindfolded during your S.H.I.E.L.D. training. In order to ensure no pain I encountered during my missions would affect me, I was exposed to greater pain.”

“You’re saying that they tortured you?” Clint asked.

“Yes,” Natasha said, looking just as surprised by her ability to say it out loud as Clint was by what she was telling him.

“You’re saying that they  _ shot  _ you at the KGB and made you fight like that?”

“Shot me, stabbed me, starved me, drugged me, broke my bones, anything that might occur during my missions, any injuries I might be required to overcome.”

“And they inflicted “greater” pain?”

“To ensure I could fight through pain, to ensure I would never break during torture, to force me to complete my missions, they used...methods,” she faltered, and Clint sensed that her brainwashing was preventing her from being more specific. “To inflict pain so great that gunshots can barely be felt. I...can not say more,” she lowered her head.

“Hey,” Clint said. He had finally finished bandaging her wound and caught her eye. “That was really good. It will get easier, I promise.” He set some clothes out for her and cleaned up the mess he had made as she put them on.

“I damaged my catsuit,” she said, running her finger over the hole.

“Hey, don’t worry about it, you wouldn’t believe how many outfits I’ve gone through, they’ve probably already made one or two extra for you. They’ll take that one and recycle the materials.” She nodded and folded it up neatly, placing it in her bag. “Now for you, you’re just going to have to do self checks, make sure you’re more aware of when you get hurt.”

“I will attempt to do so.”

“I think I’m going to take a shower, then maybe we can grab something to eat before the drive home?”

“Should we not go now?”

“We don’t need to, Natasha, no one is expecting us.” She swallowed and glanced at her packed bag.

“Hey, we can go right now if you need to, but think about why you’re anxious to get back. Experience has taught you to return immediately, to not grab a snack on the way back...as long as you don’t allow yourself to do those things, they’ll still have a measure of control over you. The goal is to rid you of their influence entirely, but it’s okay if you’re not ready to push on this yet. We’ll do whatever you want to do.”

“Let’s stay for dinner,” Natasha said, after a lengthy pause. Clint grinned.

“Sounds good.”

 

***


	7. CHAPTER 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, I wrote this chapter pretty quickly because I wanted to get it out there before my semester starts (I'm taking a lot of credits and I don't know how much free time I'll get.) I decided to skip ahead like this because I already have solid plans for the next few chapters, which will make it quicker to write than trying to come up with new ideas, and I can hopefully get a few chapters out this semester. Meanwhile, I will try to include some flashbacks from their first 3 months as inspiration comes to me. 
> 
> As always, thank you for reading, it always brightens my day when my work receives kudos or comments, and I hope you enjoy this fanfiction.

***

Over the course of Natasha’s first three months of active duty she and Clint performed a large number of missions, mostly similar in nature to their first mission, although the difficulty of their tasks did increase with each success. On the home front, things were not so easy. Clint was doing his best to coax Natasha into opening up to him and having new experiences, but she was still quiet and usually crept back to her room at the soonest opportunity. Her room, aside from being filled with books from S.H.I.E.L.D, was still barren, and her wardrobe still consisted of clothes S.H.I.E.L.D provided. Natasha was still in shock over receiving a paycheck, and after Clint kindly refused to take her salary, she hadn’t touched a dime of it, except to buy groceries. The archer had attempted to connect with his partner through many methods, including cooking, but it seemed to be the only ability Natasha was incapable of learning.

 

***

_ Flashback. _

 

_ Clint was sleeping deeply when he suddenly shot up in his bed, wide awake and reaching for the gun he kept under his pillow. It took him a moment to identify what had woken him, then he slid out of bed and opened his bedroom door. Natasha glanced at him from where she was standing, holding a smoking frying pan under a stream of water from the kitchen sink. _

_ “What’s going on?” Clint asked, opening the door to the balcony to let the smoke out and then approaching her. _

_ “I’m sorry,” Natasha said, slightly pink in the face, “I didn’t want to wake you, I was trying to…” _

_ “Eggs?” Clint asked, peering at the charred black food in the bottom of the pan. Natasha nodded. _

_ “I have never...cooked, before,” she admitted quietly, trying to scrape the eggs out of the pan and into the trash. _

_ “That’s okay, Natasha, good actually,” Clint said, taking the pan gently and trying to suppress a grin. _

_ “Good?” _

_ “It’s good to know that there’s  _ something  _ you can’t do perfectly the first time.” _

_ “How is my deficiency helpful?” She asked, confused. _

_ “It’s helpful for my ego, that’s how,” he replied, smiling. _

_ “If my abilities bother you--” _

_ “A joke, Natasha,” Clint responded, pouring some soap into the sink and filling it with hot water before dunking the pan in. “I’ll teach you how to cook, here,” he said, grabbing another pan from the drawer and pulling the eggs back out of the fridge, “we’ll try again.” _

 

_ Even with Clint standing over her shoulder and giving her directions, Natasha managed to burn a second pan of eggs, then completely over-salted a third batch. Their efforts continued for a week before Natasha’s cooking set off the fire alarms in the apartment, and they both agreed that Clint should be the one to make their meals. _

***

“I have access to the surveillance system,” Natasha’s voice drew Clint’s attention, and he moved over to the table where she was sitting so he could peer over her shoulder at the laptop. It was nighttime in Chicago, where the two spies had just arrived and begun preparing for their mission. Clint had found Natasha to be most relaxed and capable of communication while they were working, where she felt most comfortable, and thus he had made sure that the turnaround time between missions was half that of what he was used to in order to accommodate her desire to be in the field.

“Anything on the 2nd floor?”

“Negative,” she replied, tapping something into the keyboard. “It’s as we suspected, he has looped the surveillance cameras on the 2nd floor of the hotel, as well as the back entrance, hallway, and elevator. They will give us no indication of his movement.”

“Can you bypass?” He asked.

“No,” she shook her head. “He has severed the system and is merely feeding the loop remotely. If I attempt to bypass the circuitry it will simply reveal that the cameras are not functioning anymore.”

“Alrighty, guess we’re going in blind. More fun that way anyway. Can you loop the rest of the security for the hotel?”

“Done,” she responded after a moment.

“Nice,” he nodded approvingly. “Did you get a headcount on civilians?”

“137 including staff.”

“Hm,” Clint said, “that’s a lot. When do you want to go in?”

“We could begin our mission in the middle of the night, when there are the fewest number of personnel present and the guests are sleeping, or we could attack between 11 and 3 tomorrow, after guests have checked out and before new guests check in. There will be fewer civilians in the afternoon, but they will be in more vulnerable positions, out in the open.”

“So what do you want to do?”

“I believe we should attempt to complete the mission tonight. If it goes according to plan, we should be able to kill Quintos and obtain the files without disturbing the guests. He has reserved the entire 2nd floor as well as the rooms directly above and below his room. If we are quiet, we won’t disturb people on the other floors.”

“And if things don’t go as planned, we pull a fire alarm, evacuate the guests,” Clint said, nodding. “Sounds good to me.” He checked his watch. “We’ve got 5 hours until 3am, so,” he clapped his hands together. “Pizza? That joint down the block looked good.”

“Do you ever think about anything other than food?” Natasha asked, without looking up from the laptop. One improvement Clint had noticed over the past 3 months was that Natasha was beginning to develop a sense of humor and would give him attitude, which he wholeheartedly supported, glad to see her becoming more of an individual.

“Occasionally,” Clint said, “but only when necessary. C’mon, let’s go grab a slice.” Natasha sighed, but obediently shut the laptop and tucked it into her bag before hoisting it over her shoulder. The two of them made their way down the street to the small pizza parlour Clint had spotted earlier, where they ordered two slices and settled at a table in the corner while the chef busied himself with their order.

“So,” Clint said, resting his elbows on the table, “how’re you doing?” They were talking in Russian today, although the restaurant was nearly empty.

“I’m fine,” Natasha replied coolly, leaning back in her seat and folding her arms across her chest.

“Nervous?” He asked.

“Why would I be? This mission is easy, easier than most of our previous missions.” It was true; their intelligence indicated that they would be facing a maximum of 15 guards, and all they needed to do was find certain documents Quintos was carrying.

“This is the first mission we’ve gone on where there are civilians in the way, though. I know I always feel more anxious with innocents around.”

“If we do our job correctly, they won’t be involved. No one will be harmed, aside from Quintos and his people.”

“Things don’t always go to plan, though.”

“Why are you asking me this, Clint? Are you concerned that I will not protect the lives of civilians, because of my history?”

“No, of course not, Tasha, I’m worried what will happen if any civilians do die.”

“What do you mean?”

“You put so much pressure on yourself to make up for your past and you feel so much guilt for things that were out of your control, I’m worried about how you’ll feel if any innocent people die on our missions. The truth is, we do everything in our power to keep innocents out of harm’s way but sometimes people still get hurt in the crossfire.”

“I know that.”

“I just—thank you,” he said, as the waiter set their slices on the table. He waited until the man had walked away before continuing, “I just want to make sure your conscience doesn’t drag you down, that’s all. I know how hard it is for me when people die, and you’ve got all this extra pressure weighing you down. You can’t always save everyone.” Natasha was silent for a long while before she finally spoke.

“I have to.”

***

_ Flashback. _

 

_ Clint blinked blearily at the figure in the corner, who rose from their chair and approached his bed. _

_ “How are you feeling?” Natasha asked quietly. _

_ “Alright,” Clint replied, blinking a few more times until his vision focused and he was able to see his partner’s face in the dim light. He recognized his surroundings almost immediately as being one of the infirmary rooms at S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters, and a moment later his memories of the previous night returned. Clint ran a hand over his abdomen, feeling the bulk of bandages wrapped around him, then glanced at the IV hanging beside him. “Morphine is doing the trick. What happened?” _

_ “You don’t remember?” Natasha asked. _

_ “I remember getting stabbed,” he said, “falling...my head spinning...a man standing over me with a gun...and then it all goes blank,” he said. Clint patted the side of his bed to get Natasha to sit down, and she did so. The spy looked exhausted. _

_ “You passed out,” she explained. _

_ “How am I not dead? That guy was gonna shoot me,” Clint said, brow furrowed. _

_ “I shot him first,” she said simply. _

_ “But you were fighting like 3 guys,” he said. _

_ “I saw you fall and managed to grab my gun from the floor in time to kill your opponent,” Natasha responded. Given how much more battered she looked than the last time he had seen her, Clint guessed that saving him had cost her, giving her opponents time to attack while she was distracted. Natasha lowered her head. “Clint, I’m sorry,” she spoke softly. _

_ “For what?” He asked, confused. “You saved me.” _

_ “You were injured. I should have done better.” _

_ “Hey,” Clint said, tilting her chin up, “sometimes people get hurt, sometimes I’m one of those people. This isn’t the first time I’ve been stabbed, and if you hadn’t been there I’d be dead. Thank you.” Natasha just shook her head, not looking at him. “You can’t put everything on yourself, you know. I got myself into the mess, you bailed me out. It’s my own fault, and I’m going to be fine.” _

_ “I’m going to let you rest,” Natasha responded, and left before he had the chance to open his mouth in response. _

 

_ Clint was off-duty for the next two weeks recovering from his stab wound, and Natasha spent most of that time working out at S.H.I.E.L.D, as she had to wait for him to get better before she could work again. Once he was healed enough the archer had joined her, and they slowly worked up towards the intensity of their usual sparring matches, with much hesitation on Natasha’s part. She had always been cautious about using her true power against him, and even as Clint neared full strength she was afraid to hurt him, and it took a great deal of convincing on Clint’s part. _

_ “That was good,” he said, throwing his towel in the hamper as the two exited the gym. They got into the elevator at the end of the hall and rode it up, then made their way into the lounge. Clint made a beeline for coffee and Natasha followed him, arms folded across her chest. There were a few other agents inside, who watched them enter before returning to what they had been doing. Although they were excellent at appearing busy, Natasha could tell a few of them were observing her and Clint closely. _

_ “You are improving,” Natasha agreed, handing him the milk from the fridge as he busied himself over the coffee maker. “Your wound is no longer impairing you.” _

_ “It doesn’t hurt anymore,” he replied, “I’m mostly just stiff from sitting in bed. We’ll be back out there in no time, I promise.” He handed Natasha her coffee and they turned to see another agent standing right behind them. Natasha jumped, spilling some of her coffee. _

_ “Oops,” he said. “Here, let me,” he added, grabbing a towel and bending down to mop up the puddle. Agent Trinn cleaned up the spilt coffee and straightened, smiling down at her. “Didn’t mean to sneak up on you, it’s a bad habit.” Natasha nodded, her jaw clenched tightly as she avoided the man’s gaze. Trinn was one of the nicer agents when it came to how he treated Natasha, but every time she saw him Natasha became rigid and jumpy, and would neither talk to nor look at him. _

_ “Thanks,” Clint said for her, and they left the lounge. “You okay?” He asked, glancing sideways at her as they rode the elevator down to the lobby. _

_ “Yes,” she said stiffly. _

_ “Well, it’s been a long day,” Clint said. “Maybe I’ll order pizza.” _

_ “Actually, I think I’m going to stay for a while,” Natasha said, as they reached the lobby and Clint stepped out. _

_ “What? Why?” He held open the door. _

_ “I want to get a bit more time in at the gym.” _

_ “You were there two hours before I got there,” he said. _

_ “Still. There is always room for improvement.” _

_ “Is this about the mission again? Because I told you that you saved my life and couldn’t have prevented me from getting hurt, you did everything you could for me.” _

_ “Then I need to learn how to do more,” she said stubbornly. _

_ “That’s bullshit,” Clint said seriously. _

_ “What’s bullshit is not being able to protect one’s partner,” she said. “I’ll see you later, Clint.” Clint sighed and allowed the elevator doors to shut. He wanted to continue trying to make her understand that she hadn’t done anything wrong, but she had expressed her opinion and stood up for it, and he wanted to reward that. As he walked away, even though he was concerned for her, Clint smiled at the fact that she had cursed for the first time. _

 

***

 

The rest of the night passed uneventfully as Clint tried and failed to initiate conversations with Natasha. By 3 in the morning, they had driven downtown, parked, and walked the few short blocks to the Hotel Marino where their mark was staying. The spies entered through the back door of the hotel, finding themselves in a long hallway. Natasha led the way down the corridor, stopping when they reached the door to the stairs. Clint peered around the corner to see that the lobby was empty aside from a young blonde woman sitting behind the counter, nodding off with her chin in her hand. Clint gestured to let Natasha know the room was clear of targets and the two of them slipped into the stairwell, making their way to the second floor. Natasha managed to kill the two guards in front of the door with her electric bracers, but the other 5 reacted swiftly, raising guns and knives to defend themselves. Clint shot one man with an arrow before his bow was knocked from his grasp and he was thrown against the hallway wall with a loud thud. Natasha managed to shoot a second guard, but the door of one of the hotel rooms banged open and three more took his place.

Natasha edged her way down the hallway towards Quintos’ room, intent on trying to catch him before he managed to escape, but her path was blocked by several burly guards. She shot one of the men but then a door opened on her right, and the man’s kick to her arm sent her weapon flying across the room. She grabbed him and hit his forehead against the doorframe, but before she could finish him off by snapping his neck, someone had grabbed a fistful of her hair from behind and yanked her away from the man, who took the opportunity to punch her in the face. She slammed her foot into his chest and kicked off, using her momentum to swing over the man holding her. Natasha landed behind him, kicked the back of his knees, and slit his throat as he fell. She threw the dagger at the second man, who was trying to pick himself up after her kick had knocked him down, and he collapsed with a knife in his throat. Before she could straighten herself Natasha was forced to drop to the ground just in time to avoid a spray of bullets, which whizzed over her head.

Clint managed to throw one of his attackers into the path of the bullets and he fell to the floor with several holes in his chest, leaving the Archer facing two opponents, while the other two went after his partner. He didn’t have time to worry about her because one of the men he was fighting had wrapped a massive arm around his neck from behind and squeezed the oxygen from his lungs. A well-placed kick got the man to release him, but his second attacker threw him against the wall again, and Clint cringed at the noise. Although the gunshots were silenced, it was only a matter of time before someone came to investigate the crashes coming from the second floor, and then the police would be called. The Archer pulled a knife from his belt and slashed out, forcing the larger of the two guards to jump backward. Clint made to step towards him and then spun on the second guard, surprising him long enough to stab him in the heart. He heard a safety flip from behind him, and then a gunshot—he turned just in time to see the second guard, who had been just about to fire, drop dead with a hole in his head. Natasha lowered her gun slightly, gave him a small nod from up the hall, then kicked in the door to Quintos’ room and led the way inside. The place was deserted, the window hanging open. Clint strode across the room to peer outside, but Quintos was nowhere in sight. He cursed under his breath and turned back to Natasha, who was picking the lock on a briefcase. The case clicked open and she began rifling through the stack of papers inside.

“Got ‘em?” Clint asked.

“Yes,” she said after a moment, folding several sheets of paper and tucking them into her pocket, “They’re all—”

“Shh,” Clint interrupted. Natasha paused, raising an eyebrow at him. The Archer glanced slowly around the room, tilting his head as if he was listening intently. “Hear that?” Natasha listened, but all she could hear was the hum of the heater, and a slight electrical buzz from the overhead lights.

“I don’t—”

“Shh,” Clint said again, turning on the spot. “It sounds like…like…” his eyes widened. “Run!” He yelled. Together they sprinted back into the hallway, jumping over the bodies lying there. They had nearly reached the stairs when the bomb went off.

Clint felt the floor give way underneath him and he tucked himself into a tight ball as he fell through the first floor’s ceiling and hit the ground, where he was immediately covered in plaster and chunks of concrete raining down from the second floor. After a few seconds the Archer lowered his arms and raised his head, opening his eyes. The air was filled with dust and Clint coughed, eyes watering slightly as he shoved rubble off of himself and sat up.

“Natasha?” He called, rising slowly to his feet. He had a few bad gashes and would have some spectacular bruises, but for the most part he was intact. Clint spotted Natasha’s blood red hair and climbed carefully over a pile of concrete and bent metal panels to reach her. The spy sat up on her elbows as he approached.

“Are you alright?” She asked.

“Yeah, think so,” he said, kneeling down in front of her, “but you’re not.” Natasha’s legs were trapped under a heavy metal beam which had sliced deeply into one of her thighs. “What a cliché,” he muttered under his breath. Clint was just starting to look for a way to lift it off of her when a moan from behind him drew his attention. “One second,” he told Natasha, turning towards the source of the noise. He found the woman from the front desk lying a few yards away, a heavy chunk of concrete covering her chest. Clint heaved it aside and bent to listen to her heart. “She’s hurt bad, Natasha, I need to get her out of here,” he said, beginning to shift the rest of the rubble off of her. He could hear sirens growing louder and louder and knew ambulances would be arriving any minute. “You’re just going to have to wait here, I’ll run her outside and come right back for you.”

“I think I can slide my legs out from under it,” Natasha said.

“No, Tasha, that cut on your leg is already really deep, if you try and slide out you’re gonna make it worse, you could slice right through your femoral artery. We don’t want you bleeding out,” Clint said, lifting the blonde woman from the ground. “Just wait here, I’ll be right back, I promise. Okay?”

“Okay,” Natasha called. Clint made his way carefully down the hallway towards the front exit, disappearing from Natasha’s sight. She glanced down at her legs and then back up at where Clint had disappeared. She could feel her heart hammering against her chest as her anxiety rose with each passing second that Clint did not return, and she began to wonder  _ if  _ he would return. Natasha waited for what seemed like hours, her gaze focused on the end of the hallway and her ears peeled for any indication of the Archer returning. She waited, and waited, until she could wait no more.

Clint carried the woman through the front door and set her on the sidewalk in front of the hotel, kneeling over her and pressing his fingers to her neck to feel her pulse, which was weak but steady. People were flooding out of the hotel through the west doorway, and sirens were growing louder. The Archer sat with the unconscious desk clerk for 3 minutes until an ambulance pulled up in front of him and he waved the EMTs over. While they were busy with the woman, Clint snatched some supplies from inside the ambulance, then he dodged past the firefighters and police officers that were gathering outside and slid unnoticed back through the front door.

Clint arrived at the spot where Natasha had been less than 7 minutes after he had left and found only a pool of blood.

“Natasha?” He called, glancing around. “Natasha!” He said louder. Clint stepped over the beam that had trapped his partner and followed a thick trail of blood down the hallway in the opposite direction of the front door. He pushed open the back door of the hotel and quickly knelt beside his partner, who was sitting with her back against the wall right beside the entrance. “Natasha,” Clint muttered, pressing a bandage firmly against her wound with one hand and tilting her chin up with the other so that he could examine her more closely. She was conscious but barely, and he recognized the symptoms of severe blood loss. “Why didn’t you wait for me?” He asked, grabbing a fistful of bandages and pressing down with both hands as she immediately bled through her first bandage.

“I did not...know if you were coming,” she said faintly.

“I promised you I would.”

“Did not...know…” Natasha’s words slurred and a moment later her head fell back against the wall, her body going limp.

“Shit,” Clint muttered, trying to check her pulse with bloodsoaked fingers before glancing in the direction of the sirens and yelling, “I need some help over here!” Running footsteps grew louder and louder as a group of EMTs approached the two spies. “Stay with me,” Clint murmured, “please.”

 

***

 

Clint was once again sitting across the desk from Director Fury, looking exhausted. It had been over 19 hours since he had gotten in the ambulance with Natasha, whose condition was so critical that S.H.I.E.L.D couldn’t retrieve them until the doctors at the hospital had stabilized her, for fear she would die during travel to the nearest base just outside of the city. Once she had been stabilized, S.H.I.E.L.D had swooped in and taken them back to New York, where Clint had been poked and prodded for 3 hours, told to lie down and rest, and had left the infirmary as soon as the doctors turned their attention away from him. He looked up as Fury entered his office, caught sight of the Archer, and sighed.

“You’re supposed to be resting,” he said, settling in the seat across from him.

“Don’t feel like it,” Clint replied.

“The doctors say you have a pretty severe concussion,” Fury countered, crossing his arms.

“I’ll be fine.”

“So will Romanoff, it seems,” the Director responded, nodding to the tablet on his desk. “Thanks to you. If you had been a few minutes longer, she likely would have bled out.”

“She wouldn’t have if she had just waited for me,” Clint muttered.

“Meaning?”

“She was trapped, but there was a woman dying who I had to get outside. I told her to wait, that if she tried to slide out from under the beam it would slice deeper into her leg and that I’d come back and get it off of her. I was gone 7 minutes, Fury, it took less than 7 minutes for her to believe I wouldn’t come back for her.”

“Maybe she was worried you had been injured on your way out, the building was extremely unstable.” Clint shook his head.

“She doesn’t  _ trust  _ me, Fury,” he said frustratedly.

“Perhaps she just needs more time.”

“Time? She nearly killed herself getting free because she didn’t believe I’d come back for her, even though I promised her I would. The one thing we need above all else in order to work together is trust, and she doesn’t trust me.”

“What do you suggest?”

“In a few days, when Natasha is feeling better, I want you to give us some time off.”

“What for?”

“I’ve got an idea on how to get her to open up to me. We’re going to take a little trip,” Clint replied. Fury surveyed the Archer for a few moments before nodding.

“Alright, Barton. Once the doctors clear her to travel, you’ll get your time off. Now go get some rest.” Clint rose from his chair, and headed for the door. “And Barton?”

“Yes?”

“Good luck.”

 

***


	8. CHAPTER 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, I’m sorry it’s been so long since I last posted, I’ve been very busy and I spent a lot of time editing and editing this chapter repeatedly before deciding that it’s better to post it now and move on to writing the next chapter. I'm sorry if it's a bit rough around the edges due to repeated edits, but I promised I would post by today and it's long. Please note that this chapter does have ***TRIGGER WARNINGS*** for discussion of past sexual abuse.

***

*****TRIGGER WARNINGS***** for discussions of past sexual abuse. As this story is about Natasha’s recovery and growth, her history with the Red Room (including physical, psychological, and sexual abuse) will be occasionally discussed as the story progresses, trigger warnings will be included for any chapters that include this discussion.

 

***

 

 

 

The door opened and Natasha stepped gracefully out of the truck, her boots crunching on the gravel driveway as she surveyed their surroundings. Her gaze flicked over the barn, light blue house, and rolling green hills before she turned towards the Archer.

“Where are we?” Natasha asked. Clint had been cryptic about their destination for the entire drive there, despite her repeated questions, leaving Natasha in a very irritable mood.

“This is where I grew up,” Clint replied. Natasha’s eyebrows rose and she looked again towards the house, which looked both old and new at the same time, as if it had been repaired.

“Why did you bring me here?” She questioned, looking back to him.

“You don’t trust me, Natasha, and you have to. We’re here so you can learn to trust me more.”

“I’m  _ really  _ not interested in meeting your parents, Clint,” Natasha said.

“They’re dead. It’s just us,” he said, heading towards the house. “C’mon.” Natasha pursed her lips but followed him, albeit suspiciously, to the stairs. Clint opened a panel concealed in one of the front steps and tapped something in. Natasha heard several locks on the front door disengage and Clint held it open for her. The woman stepped cautiously inside, taking note of all possible exits. The house was inexplicably free of dust and cobwebs--in fact, it was completely clean. 

“When I started working for S.H.I.E.L.D,” Clint said, sensing her confusion, “they were looking for new safehouses. I offered them this place, since it was technically left to me.”

“What happened to your parents?” Natasha asked, turning to look at him.

“Let’s unpack the car,” Clint replied. She let out a small hiss of annoyance, but followed her partner back to the car and carried their bags inside. Clint entered, holding a crate of food, which he carried into the kitchen and set on the island. Natasha followed him into the room, arms crossed.

“So?”

“Patience is a virtue, you know,” Clint said, beginning to put groceries in the fridge.

“Clint, you’ve brought me to the middle of nowhere for no reason other than that you want to  _ bond.  _ You trust me, I’ve had your back on every mission and I’ve done everything I can to keep you safe and complete our tasks.”

“Your skills are not in question, but trust needs to be a two way street, and you don’t trust me.”

“Yes I do,” she said. Clint snorted.

“Yeah right,” he said sarcastically, “Natasha, you trust me about as far as you can throw me.” He paused. “Bad analogy, you can throw me pretty far. What I mean is that you don’t trust me enough.”

“I trust you to have my back,” she insisted.

“We live together but you avoid me at home.”

“I’m just busy,” she said defensively.

“With what, reading? Natasha, a week ago you read a manual on how to fix an air conditioner rather than talk to me.”

“What do you want, Clint?” She said exasperatedly. “A home cooked meal? Should I sob?”

“Good god, no, you’re a terrible cook,” he replied, “I just want you to open up to me. You’re about as emotionally attached as a brick wall.”

“Since when does our job have to do with emotional attachment?”

“Working with a partner is different than working alone. I’m still figuring it out for myself, but one thing I do know is that any partnership requires mutual trust in order to work. More than that, Natasha, I want to be your friend.”

“Why?”

“Because I care about you and want you to be happy.”

“Why?” She repeated.

“Because that’s what happens when you open yourself up to someone. They become a part of your life, and you want the people in your life to be happy, because when you care about someone, their happiness brings you happiness. That’s all I want from you, Natasha. I know you can do it if you try, you can open up to me.”

“Maybe I can,” she responded, “but why should I?”

“Look, shutting me out is a defense mechanism. You think that if you never get close you won’t get hurt, but that’s no way to live your life. I know living and having freedom is new to you, but you know enough about humans to know that they  _ need  _ company. We’re not happy without at least some companionship and as comfortable as you might feel being unhappy, happiness is a hell of a lot better,” Clint said, watching her closely. Natasha hopped up onto the island and reached into the crate of food, pulling out an apple. She stared at it, turning it over in her hands, then tossed it into the air and caught it.

“What happened to your parents?” She asked, meeting his gaze. Clint sighed and leaned against the opposite counter, facing her with his arms crossed.

“An answer for an answer,” he said. She narrowed her eyes slightly in displeasure, but nodded her agreement. “My father killed my mom in a drunken stupor, and my brother shot him in the head. What happened to your parents?”

“They burned to death when my uncle set their house on fire. What happened to you after your parents died?”

“My brother and I joined a traveling circus. Why did your uncle set the house on fire?”

“He wanted me. Didn’t the authorities try to find you?”

“It’s a small town,” Clint shrugged, “tracking us down would have been more trouble than we were worth. Why did he want you?”

“For the Black Widow trial, he needed newborn female infants and I was convenient. Why did you become a spy?”

“I performed archery in the circus, but I liked shooting, not performing. I started off freelancing and a S.H.I.E.L.D agent found me, brought me in. When you say trial...you mean there are more of you?”

“There were 1,200 of us at first, now there are 25 including myself.”

“What happened to the rest of them?” Clint asked out of turn.

“They died,” she replied, somewhat stiffly.

“But how?”

“A lot of them died from the conditioning, they couldn’t withstand the experiments or the torture. Some died on missions, the rest died in the fights.”

“Fights?”

“They always wanted just 25 of us, the best 25. They made us fight to the death,” she said, then asked “how old were you when your parents died and you joined the circus?”

“I joined the circus when I was 10, right after they died.” He caught the apple that Natasha had been tossing and took a huge bite, earning an annoyed look.

“What have you got against Agent Trinn?” He asked, munching on the apple.

“He reminds me of someone, a man named Michael. How long have you been working for S.H.I.E.L.D?”

“If you include my training time, almost 4 years now. What did Michael do to make you hate him so much?” She stiffened.

“Ask something else.” Clint sighed in frustration and set the apple down.

“Natasha, this is what I’m talking about, hiding yourself from me, putting up your shield. I’m...I’m trying to let you in, okay? I hate this place,” he gestured around at the house, “because I can remember all of the beatings, and the sound of her crying, and seeing my mother lying on the kitchen floor in a pool of blood, but I brought you here so I could be  _ vulnerable  _ with you. This is not a part of my life that I ever talk about or  _ think  _ about, but I’m telling you about my past so you know it’s okay to tell me about yours. History is...ugly. I know that, and I’d never judge you for the things they made you do or the people they made you hurt. I may not understand much, but I understand enough to know you didn’t have a choice. I just want to understand more, and if you talk to me, I may be able to lift some of that weight off your shoulders.”

“He took my virginity,” she said, not looking at him. Clint’s look of frustration faded, replaced by surprise and then confusion.

“What?”

“Forcefully.” Clint lowered his head, covering his face with one hand.

“Natasha, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed you, I thought it was about…”

“Where is your brother now?” Natasha asked. Clint looked up at her, but her expression was unreadable.

“Uh...I’m not sure, he dropped off the map,” he said slowly. Natasha looked at him expectantly. “It doesn’t count, you know, if it’s rape.”

“Then I’m the world’s most experienced virgin. You’re a spy, and you’re telling me that you can’t track down one man?”

“I think he’s dead,” Clint said. “If he isn’t, he’s not in general society. Probably homeless. Besides, I haven’t tried very hard.” He trailed off, watching her. Natasha glanced at him and rolled her eyes.

“Just ask what you want to ask, Clint. I don’t care.” Clint hesitated, but Natasha was staring at him, clearly wanting to get his questions out of the way.

“Was he...a mark?” He asked finally.

“He worked for the Red Room.”

“Worked for as in…”

“It was part of my training.”

“ _ Training?  _ How many times?”

“I don’t know. I don’t have all of my memories, and a lot that I do have are fuzzy. I’d guess thousands of times over the past 5 years,” Natasha said. Clint opened and closed his mouth several times, unable to form words, as he tried to decide which part of her statement was more horrifying, then finally spoke,

“Five  _ years _ ? You’re 18!”

“My development was accelerated so I would have the brain and body of an adult when I was 12, as I needed to be capable of seducing my marks when I began working at 13.”

“ _ Thousands? _ ”

“Five years is a long time, and they needed a lot of guards there to keep us from escaping.”

“Natasha, I am...I am so sorry,” Clint said. Natasha had grabbed another apple from the crate and was picking at it in a bored manner, creating shallow craters in the surface with her nails.

“So,” she said, clearing her throat and looking up at him, “how long are we stuck here?” Clint surveyed her for a moment, but she was clearly done with the topic and he didn’t want to push her to discuss it further.

“Fury gave us five days leave,” he said. Natasha gave a small groan at the idea and laid back on the counter, looking up at the ceiling. “How’s your leg doing?”

“It’s fine,” she muttered. 

“I should check on it,” Clint said, glancing at his watch, then turning to the sink and washing his hands. Natasha rolled her eyes, but unbuckled her belt and slid her pants down to reveal the white, slightly bloody bandages wrapped around her thigh.

“You and I need to discuss the definition of “fine,”” Clint said calmly, pulling on a pair of gloves and peeling the bandages away. “You’ve pulled a stitch. How?” He asked as he set about cleaning the wound, which was impressively healed considering she had been injured just a few days ago.

“How am I supposed to know?” She asked.

“We’ve talked about this, Natasha, you need to do self-checks for wounds and lay off your injuries, you can’t go about your activities like normal when your leg is being held together by 20 stitches.”

“I haven’t been,” she said defensively, “I’ve been resting.”

“Yeah, well, you need to rest more until this is healed. Pulling out your stitches will only increase your recovery time and the scar it leaves behind.” He finished rebandaging the cut and Natasha pulled her pants back on.

“Where am I staying?” She asked, nodding to the house.

“I figured you’d take the master bedroom, at the end of the hall.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll probably sleep on the couch.” Natasha tilted her head at him. “I don’t think I’ll be able to get any sleep in my old room or my mom’s. S.H.I.E.L.D replaced the couch so it’d be comfortable enough if someone was injured and needed to be patched up.” Natasha nodded and hopped off of the island, grabbing the strap of her bag and slinging it over her shoulder. “Where are you going?”

“My room,” she said, motioning down the hall, “I brought some books to read.”

“Natasha,” Clint said, sighing, “I didn’t mean--I didn’t want to upset you, I’m sorry for asking so many questions, I just...I care about you and I want to understand you so that I can help you. We don’t have to talk about heavy stuff, any communication at all is progress.”

“I’m not upset, Clint, I’m just tired, I spent the whole day in a car,” she said. “I just want to rest and read a book.” She disappeared down the hallway without another word.

 

Natasha came out of her room for dinner, but quickly retreated at the soonest opportunity. Clint paced restlessly around the house, occasionally sitting down on the couch, but never managing to stay for long. After almost an hour, he gave up, got up, and headed for the door.

 

***

 

Natasha set her book down; she hadn’t finished it, but a growing sensation that she didn’t recognize had been distracting her, and had grown unbearable. She got up and opened the door, peering down the hallway.

“Clint?” When no reply came, Natasha ventured further out of the room, into the kitchen and living room, and then broadened her search to the entire house. She was just about to pull out her phone and call him when she spotted him out the window, a lone figure on the roof of the barn, watching the sunset. She set off across the driveway, slipping into the barn. She found a ladder behind a rusted tractor, and climbed up into a loft, then through the open window onto the roof. Clint was sitting a few feet away, and after hesitating slightly, Natasha sat down beside him.

“Sorry I didn’t tell you I’d be outside, I didn’t think you’d come out of your room,” he said.

“It’s fine,” she replied. After a short pause she asked, “did you come out here often, when you were a child?” She had noticed that this part of the roof was more worn than the rest, as if frequently walked on.

“All the time,” Clint responded.

“Why?”

“My father was afraid of heights,” he said. “He’d come out here and yell at me to get down, but he wouldn’t climb up here to get me. I’d stay up here for hours, even days. I guess that’s why I’ve always loved heights. I just feel...safer,” he gave a small shrug.

“I’m sorry about your father,” she said awkwardly, “and your mother.” This was not a conversation she had been taught how to have--her marks tended to avoid talking about anyone but themselves.

“Yeah,” he said. “It was a long time ago, though.” This was the quietest Natasha had ever seen Clint. The silence stretched on and on as they sat there and the sun sunk slowly towards the horizon. Natasha had never had to initiate a conversation with Clint, as he was constantly talking and asking questions, and for the first time she actually missed it. She cleared her throat.

“How did you hear the bomb?” She asked finally.

“What?”

“In Chicago,” she clarified. “I couldn’t hear anything, but you did.” A small smile appeared on Clint’s face. With anyone else, he would have thought it arrogance to be surprised that he had superior hearing, but he imagined that Natasha’s hearing, much like the rest of her, was enhanced in some way. Her confusion, therefore, made sense.

“Well, Hawkear just sounds dumb,” he said, flashing a grin.

“What?”

“I’ve just got very good hearing.”

“How?”

“It’s a birth defect,” he explained. “Parts of the cartilage in my ears developed strangely, and you know the hairs in your ears that translate vibrations into noise?” She nodded. “I just have a lot more of those. It was sort of as if my ears developed backwards. When I was a kid, I could hear a pin drop across a crowded room, but the louder the noise, the more indistinctly I heard it.” For a split second Natasha looked confused, but then she nodded.

“Your ears were so sensitive that your brain couldn’t handle the sensory input from louder noises,” she said.

“Yeah,” Clint nodded. “You had to talk pretty quietly for me to hear you. I could usually hear my mom, she was a very soft-spoken woman, but my father...I knew he was yelling, because my ears would hurt, but if I couldn’t see his mouth I had no idea what he was saying. It was a difficult condition for people to understand, so I learned sign language and how to read lips. I was mostly deaf.”

“And you were able to live like that?”

“Yeah, pretty much. It was a bit harder when I joined the circus, because it was pretty noisy most of the time and I was always up high where it wasn’t easy to reach me, but they got some soft bells that I could hear if they needed to get my attention. Plus, it was really funny when someone would come up to me after a show and say how impressive it was that I was shooting stuff out of the air blindfolded, and I’d stop them and point to my ears. They’d stare at me with disbelief, that I could be deaf and blindfolded, and I thought it was just hilarious. But yeah, all the people in the circus were great about it, they’d all speak quietly to me and I taught some of them sign language.”

“How do you hear now?”

“S.H.I.E.L.D,” he said simply. “When an Agent came to bring me in, they didn’t even know about my hearing. It was a huge pain and took a lot of time and money, but the doctors found a way to surgically correct my ears so that I’d be able to hear within the normal range of human hearing without losing my ability to hear beyond it. My training took a few months longer than usual just because I had to learn what noises sounded like. At first I had to wear hearing aids, then they did a second surgery so I wouldn’t need them. Occasionally I’ll have to wear my hearing aids for a few days if my ears get a big overload, like a gun going off right by my head, and sometimes I just have bad-hearing days, but for the most part I’m good.”

“That’s...very unique,” Natasha said.

“Yeah, I guess so,” Clint replied absentmindedly. They watched as the sun finally disappeared beyond the horizon and, as darkness began to fall, Clint seemed to shake himself and turned to his partner. “Hey, did you need anything?” He asked. Natasha, who had been staring at the horizon, glanced over at his face, illuminated by the light from the barn.

“What?”

“I’m sorry,” Clint said, “you came out here looking for me and I was distracted, what is it?”

“Oh...I, um…” Natasha searched for words, “I didn’t…I didn’t need anything, I just...” she sighed. “I’m not sure why I came out here. I was reading, but then I...I don’t know. I couldn’t concentrate, so I went looking for you.”

“Well,” Clint said with a small smile, “it sounds like you got lonely.”

“I know what loneliness feels like.”

“There’s a difference between just being lonely and actually wanting company,” Clint responded. Natasha felt her heart twinge in recognition and she swallowed, trying to bury it.

“Ah,” was all she said.

“It’s alright,” Clint said, mistaking her quietness for humiliation, “you’ve never had anyone whose company would make you feel even remotely better, so it makes sense that you wouldn’t know.” Natasha was silent for a long while, then said, softly,

“I have had a friend before, Clint.”

“Oh,” Clint responded, “I’m sorry, I just assumed…” he trailed off. “What happened?”

“It was a long time ago. I was 7, we’d been sharing a cell for 3 years. They kept telling us that they’d never intended all of us to live, so we’d have to share cells until enough of us died off. We weren’t supposed to be friends, but...you spend so much time locked in a room with someone, you can’t help it.” She lowered her head. “We...helped each other. We couldn’t take away the pain, the fear, the shame, but going through it with someone else, having someone who understood...it made it...more bearable.” 

“What happened?” Clint asked, after a lengthy silence.

“...one day, the guards brought me to a room I’d never been in, and when they opened the door, I saw Vivian inside.” She paused, staring down at her lap. When she spoke again, her voice was quieter. “They’d started the fights a few months previously. We all knew the rules; two girls go into a room with one knife, only one girl comes out. But the fights were supposed to be fair,” she said, a hint of resentment in her voice. “Girls with the lowest scores fighting in even matches to eliminate the worst from the trial. That’s why I hadn’t been in one yet. I was the best, I didn’t need to fight for my position. Vivian and me, it wasn’t a fair fight, it wasn’t even close,” Natasha said angrily. “I was ready to sit and protest, they’d already been conditioning me to survive long periods of time without food and water, but Vivian forced me to kill her. She attacked me with the knife--she knew I wouldn’t have a  _ choice,  _ I  _ had  _ to defend myself...I was programmed to. I…” she cleared her throat, and when she continued, the anger was gone from her voice, leaving it sounding almost hollow. “I stabbed her in the heart and held her while she died. They left me in there with her body, covered in her blood, for three days.” Natasha stopped, staring out into the darkness, but Clint got the impression that she wasn’t finished, and said nothing. “There were enough cells for each of us to have had our own” she said eventually, unable to hide the bitterness in her voice. “But they needed us to get close, to become friends, so that they could teach us the lesson. Love is weakness, and weakness is unacceptable.”

“Natasha, I’m really sorry,” Clint said softly. She gave a small nod, her head still lowered. “What do you think will happen if you allow yourself to trust me?”

“I can’t get close enough to trust you without caring about you, deeply. If I allow that to happen, I...there are many,  _ many _ people in the world who already want me dead, or want my knowledge, or both. There’s nothing they could do to me to cause me real pain, but if I trusted you, they could use you against me, and I can’t...I can’t feel that pain again. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep...I wasn’t as afraid of the torture or brainwashing sessions, because the physical pain was enough to block out everything else and I...wouldn’t have to think about her. I would have done  _ anything  _ to get her back even though she actually  _ deserved  _ to die, killing her was the kindest thing I could have done for her. I can’t feel that way again, I can’t risk everything for someone and I can’t put anyone at risk for being important to me. Trusting you, caring about you, would make me weak.” She stood abruptly.

“Natasha--”

“Goodnight Clint,” she said curtly, and ducked inside the barn. A moment later she was striding back across the lawn to the house. The front door fell shut behind her and Clint sighed, resting his head on his knees. When the cold finally drove him inside half an hour later, Natasha’s door was shut, and the house was silent.

 

***

 

Natasha didn’t come out for breakfast, despite the enticing smells of pancakes, nor did she leave her room for lunch. Clint left soup and bread out for her and went out to the barn, hoping she would come out and eat if he was gone. Natasha opened the door cautiously when she heard the front door close, and looked out the window to see Clint climb back onto the roof of the barn. She ate her lunch and returned to her book, but Clint did not return when she was finished eating, nor did he return to cook dinner. Natasha left her room to look out the window, and saw him sitting exactly where he had been sitting 3 hours ago. Everything the Red Room had taught her told her not to go out there again, where she had already shared too much; but everything the Red Room had taught her had also told her to leave Clint on the roof, and the look of sad disappointment on his face as she did had kept her up that night. After a moment’s hesitation, she slipped on her shoes and left the house and climbed back up into the loft.

“Hey,” she said, stepping out onto the roof. It was windy, and Natasha was reminded of being on the roof of Clint’s building with him, just after moving in.

“Hey,” Clint replied. His brow furrowed in confusion before he glanced at the dark sky, then at his watch. “Oh wow, I’m sorry, Natasha, I lost track of time. You could have called me when it was time to cook--” 

“No, it’s fine,” Natasha said, as Clint made to stand up. He paused, looking up at her.

“Did you get something to eat?”

“I don’t get hungry if I don’t eat every six hours, but you eat a snack almost every hour...aren’t you starving? It’s almost eight.”

“I guess I was just too distracted to think about food.”

“Ah,” Natasha responded, “I thought maybe you didn’t come inside because you were avoiding me. Which is understandable, and I just wanted to…” she stopped, unable to form the next words. She cleared her throat and pulled a granola bar out of her pocket, holding it out to him. “Give you this.”

“I wasn’t avoiding you, really,” he said, accepting the bar, “I just wasn’t paying attention to the time. Or the sky, apparently, I’m sorry. Do you want to share?” He motioned to the food. Natasha seemed to consider him for a moment, then sat down beside him and crossed her arms over her chest. Clint unwrapped the granola bar and broke it in half, offering her one of the pieces.

“So what were you thinking about?” Natasha asked.

“Hm?”

“What were you thinking about that made you lose track of time?” She nibbled on the corner of her food, watching him.

“You and me, trust, trying to figure you out, trying to figure out why you don’t trust me.”

“I told you last night. Trusting you would mean caring about you, and that would make me weak. I can’t have anyone in my life that I would do anything for, not when I know the things I know and do the things I do. It would just be... _ dangerous _ , for everyone.”

“I think you’re wrong,” Clint replied. Natasha raised her eyebrows.

“What?”

“I agree, caring about someone enough to trust them  _ can  _ be a weakness. That’s why a lot of spies try not to date or make friends outside of S.H.I.E.L.D. They worry about getting innocents involved in their lives, worry that friends and family could be killed or used as hostages because of them. They’re scared of having anyone out there who they’d think about betraying S.H.I.E.L.D. secrets to save. They have an easier time socializing at S.H.I.E.L.D. because their loved ones are other people who have knowingly accepted the risks associated with this life, who could understand and forgive them for choosing S.H.I.E.L.D. over them. Even then, love--whether it’s romantic or not--is dangerous; it’s giving someone a piece of your soul, and that  _ can  _ be a weakness--but it can also be a strength.” Natasha looked extremely skeptical, but Clint continued. “Since you got here, I’ve looked into every partnered case I could get my hands on with my clearance level, trying to learn how this is done, and I kept seeing the same results over and over: partners do better. For starters, their mission mortality rates are significantly lower, both for spies and civilians. Partners are 3 times less likely to get captured and 2 times more likely to escape if they do get caught. If one person was captured and the other wasn’t, the captured agent is 8 times more likely to be successfully rescued. Partners get to do more complex, higher-level missions because they use combined skill sets and draw on each other for strength. And when it comes down to it? Partners are no more likely to give up information than solo spies, even when they have to watch each other get hurt and killed. Loving someone doesn’t mean you would do anything for them, Natasha. It means knowing them and respecting them enough to do what they’d want, even if it means they die. But I think you know that.” Natasha, who had been staring down at her lap and twirling a piece of straw between her fingers, looked up.

“What?”

“You don’t  _ have _ to kill someone when your self defense programming is triggered, not if you’re sufficiently stronger than them. I saw it when you fought Williams--I saw how you automatically reacted to the threat, but he was trying to kill you and you managed to give him nothing but a few bruises.”

“So?”

“So, if you and Vivian were really that unmatched, you should have been able to fight her lethal force with non-lethal force. You wanted her alive, her friendship was the only good thing in your life, but you knew that  _ she  _ wanted to die, and killing her would save her a lot of suffering. You sacrificed your love and condemned yourself to a lifetime of guilt because it was what she wanted. As much as it hurt you, you’d do it again, wouldn’t you?” Natasha looked away from him.

“Yes,” she admitted quietly.

“So you know that if it came down to it, you wouldn’t give up S.H.I.E.L.D., or our mission, or anything to save my life, because I’d rather die. You definitely have some fear to work through, but that’s not the main reason you don’t trust me.”

“Then what is?” She asked.

“Well, I’ve been up here, apparently for a long time, trying to work that out. Because I’ve never done anything to make me seem untrustworthy. I saved you, I defended you and got you into S.H.I.E.L.D., I’ve trained with you and fought with you and lived with you--” the wind had picked up so much that they were in danger of being blown off the roof, and their voices were lost in the wind. Clint gestured into the barn and they slipped into the loft, closing the window behind them. Clint had brought a lantern, a book, and a nest of blankets up the night before, and the loft was lit by a warm orange glow. The Archer dragged some of the blankets to where they were sitting and took a seat beside Natasha, who was curled up in the corner. “As I was saying,” Clint continued, “I was just up here trying to make sense of it. I know that I’m a little  _ too  _ trusting, but it didn’t make sense to me how you could trust me so little that it took you less than 7 minutes to decide that I wasn’t coming back to save your life after I promised to. Because I’ve never lied to you, Natasha,” he said, glancing sideways at her. “Even when the truth was scary and a lie would have been more reassuring. But I think I finally get it.”

“Get what?” Natasha asked. She had her knees drawn up to her chest and was resting her head against the wall of the barn.

“Why you still don’t trust me,” Clint answered. “It’s because you don’t understand my motives.”

“Motives?”

“For bringing you back with me. You don’t trust me because I saved your life, and you still don’t think you deserve to be saved.” Natasha didn’t say anything, but her gaze slowly, almost unwillingly, met his. 

“Why am I here, Clint?” She asked quietly, almost accusingly.

“Because what you did was not your fault, Natasha. You’re a victim of the KGB, not one of them.”

“How can you  _ know  _ that?” She hissed. “Why do you--how can you want to  _ save  _ me after everything I’ve done? I’m a monster! You expect me to  _ trust  _ someone who would want to save  _ me?  _ You should have put a bullet in my brain the moment you came into that room.”

“I couldn’t.”

“Why not?” She asked, and he could clearly hear her anger now.

“Because I couldn’t kill an innocent person.”

“I’m not innocent!” She said furiously. “I’m a murderer! I am covered in,  _ drenched  _ in blood, and I’m supposed to just go to sleep in my feather bed and  _ enjoy  _ what life has to offer? When so many hundreds of people  _ can’t  _ because I took life away from them? Things like me are kept in cages or taken out back and shot, so what the hell am I doing here?” It sounded like 4 months of bottled up emotion had exploded in an angry, confused, scared, and despairing yell. Clint brushed tears from his eyes and moved so he could face Natasha directly. She seemed to have exhausted her anger, but was curled up as tightly as she could and was looking at him like a kicked dog.

“Natasha,” Clint said, “I didn’t say that you weren’t a killer. You have killed, I know that. You’ve killed a lot of people, but it wasn’t your  _ fault.  _ You aren’t vengeful, you didn’t kill them for money or information or pleasure. You killed because you  _ had  _ to. You were just...a weapon. They fired you, and you killed, but they’re the ones that really did it.”

“But I--”

“Do you believe, having experienced their torture and programming, that there’s anyone in the world who  _ wouldn’t  _ submit and do what they wanted?”

“No, but--”

“If they could make anyone their slave, how could someone who spent their whole life there, in captivity, resist them?”

“I should have--”

“Natasha, it’s a miracle that you even comprehend that killing is bad. You grew up in complete isolation from anyone but their influences. You couldn’t have resisted them, no one could have. You will never forget killing those people, but I hope that you’ll eventually see their deaths as I do, as the KGB’s fault. You’re not a monster, Natasha, the people who made you kill are.”

“They made me into a monster.”

“No. They made you into a weapon. Being different, enhanced, doesn’t make you a monster. If I learned anything as a kid, technically it makes you a superhero.” Natasha bit her lip. “You do deserve to be alive, to  _ have  _ a life. You deserve to have happiness and individuality and anything you want. You may have killed people, but you aren’t responsible for their deaths or taking their lives, the KGB is. They robbed those people of their futures, their lives. Don’t let them take yours away too. They don’t get to win.”

“You don’t think I’m a monster now,” she said.

“I don’t.”

“That still doesn’t explain why you saved me.”

“I heard enough in that hotel room.”

“But you could have shot me from the doorway, you didn’t have to come in, to talk to me. You hesitated, and you don’t hesitate.” Her brow furrowed as she looked at him. “So why?”

“Your file said you were a monster, but I knew looking at you that you weren’t.”

“How?”

“Because,” Clint replied, “monsters aren’t weighed down by the guilt and regret of what they’ve done. You can see it in the eyes, the burden, it makes you look older. When I looked into your eyes at the party, it was like you’d lived a thousand years.” They were quiet for a long time and sat, listening to the wind whistle through the trees. After a few minutes, Natasha laid her head on Clint’s shoulder and pulled some of his blanket over her legs.

“Can we stay here a while?”

“Yeah, Natasha, we can.”

 

***


	9. CHAPTER 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is the next chapter! Fair warning, this chapter is about 90% fluff and banter because I've been too busy to do too much plot, so I made it a bit longer than usual to make up for it. (I also don't end it at a perfect ending point because I was planning to end after their shopping trip but don't have the time--I might include a bit at the beginning of the next chapter to smooth the transition). Next chapter will get back into plot, promise!

***

 

Natasha left her room the next morning to find Clint in the kitchen cooking breakfast. He looked up when she entered.

“There’s hot coffee,” he said, gesturing to the pot. “Food will be done in a few minutes. Do you want your bacon chewy or crispy?” Natasha shrugged and poured herself a mug of coffee with cream, taking a seat at the island.

“I don’t care.”

“You’re an American now,” Clint replied seriously, “you  _ have  _ to care about bacon. I’m pretty sure it’s a law.”

“Oh really?” Natasha asked, arching her eyebrow at him.

“Yep. Just like you have to know how rare you like your hamburgers and what your favorite donut is.”

“Is heart disease an American right too?” She asked, taking a sip of coffee.

“Yes. If you’re not at least slightly at risk for it, people’ll get suspicious.”

“Fine, then. Chewy.” Clint removed the frying pan from the heat and a moment later, set a giant plate of bacon, eggs, and toast in front of her. Natasha looked down at it and then up at him. “Wow, Clint, do you think you made enough?”

“There’s more in the fridge,” he responded, setting his own plate beside her and pouring himself a mug of coffee. He took a seat beside her and picked up his fork. “Fatness is an American right too,” he added before beginning to wolf down his food.

“This coming from a man with 10% body fat,” Natasha noted, taking a bite of toast.

“I’m planning for the future,” Clint said, his voice slightly muffled by his food. “Once I get old enough to retire and my metabolism slows down and I don’t work out as much, it’ll all catch up to me. And if I don’t make it to retirement, I’ll die knowing I didn’t waste my twenties eating just tofu and kale.” 

“At what age do you intend to retire?” Natasha asked, finishing her first piece of bacon and picking up a second. Clint had already eaten all 5 pieces of his bacon and half of his eggs and toast.

“Dunno,” he said, taking a gulp of coffee. “Fury and Coulson decide when to take people off active duty. I mean, most people get taken out by an irreversible injury or  _ literally  _ get taken out, but a guy can always dream of making it to 40, maybe 45 without dying or losing a limb. I’ll probably still work for S.H.I.E.L.D. for a while, maybe training newbies or something, but eventually I think I’ll buy a house in the country. What about you?” He asked, glancing over at her.

“What about me?”

“What’ll you do after retirement? I have to think that in 25 years you’ll be free to go wherever and do whatever you want.”

“My aging has slowed since I reached full growth. If I do not die before then, I may be capable of continuing to work for years after you retire. Perhaps decades,” she added, “I do not know how long I am intended to live, only that I was created to remain youthful and capable of active duty for as long as possible.” Clint blinked in surprise, but quickly took another bite of his food to hide it. It was the first time Natasha had really volunteered information about her enhancement, and he didn’t want to scare her off.

“Well, after you retire, whenever that may be, what do you want to do?” Natasha paused with her mug halfway to her lips, then took a long sip and set it down.

“I think for now...I’ll stick with deciding whether I want my bacon chewy or crispy,” she responded.

“Sure,” Clint said. They ate in silence for a while, Clint going through another cup of coffee and piece of toast while Natasha took small bites of her eggs and played with her food. After a while she spoke, not looking up.

“I’m sorry for yelling at you last night,” she said softly.

“Don’t be,” Clint said, setting his mug down and taking his attention off his breakfast. He had been expecting this, but hadn’t wanted to push her, so he had joked lightheartedly and hoped she would feel comfortable bringing it up when she was ready. “Please, Natasha, don’t ever apologize for telling me how you really feel. That’s what I want, always.”

“But I upset you,” she said, still staring down at her plate.

“It was hard for me to hear that you feel that way about yourself, because I care about you and want you to feel happy. But just because something is hard to hear doesn’t mean I don’t want to hear it, okay? I want you to be happy-- _ actually  _ happy, not just pretending, and in order for that to happen I need to know what’s standing in the way of your happiness. I don’t mind being upset, I’m  _ glad  _ to be upset because you can’t heal without owning your pain and emotions. Expressing how you feel, no matter if it upsets me, means you’re starting to heal, and that,” he rested his hand on her arm so she would look up at him. “That makes me really happy, and hopeful.”

“I wasn’t actually yelling at  _ you _ , I was just…”

“I know, Natasha. It’s okay, I promise.” Natasha stared at him, looking for any hint of deception, any sign that he felt hurt and she should have kept her mouth shut, but found none. She looked down at her plate and cleared her throat.

“I think my bacon is cold. Is it any good heated up in the microwave?”

“Here,” Clint said, standing and moving back to the stove. “I was just about to fry some more, I can warm yours while the pan heats up. She handed over her plate and watched him open the fridge to retrieve more bacon.

“You brought a lot of food,” she noted, getting a good look inside the fridge.

“Yes, yes I did. You know me and food, I like to be prepared. I was thinking about going in to town to get some things. There’s a really great bakery, uses local flour and eggs and everything, I was thinking of getting some bread for dinner and some pastries for tomorrow’s breakfast. Want to come?”

“Sure,” Natasha responded, after a moment’s deliberation. “Nice town?”

“Well,” he said, taking a sip of coffee and using his free hand to put the bacon in the frying pan. “It’s a nice bakery, at least. When I was a kid the lady who owns the place, Linda, would let me come over pretty much whenever and help knead the dough or do other chores, then give me a pastry.”

“So you’ve always been so invested in food?”

“Yeah,” Clint said, grinning, “I mean I cooked with my mom all the time, and most kids are obsessed with sugar so free donuts were always welcome. But with the bakery it was more a place to escape to when things were bad at home. I don’t think Linda knew how bad it really was but just assumed that I wanted to get away from my parents yelling and fighting with each other.” He set Natasha’s bacon back on her plate and put his in the pan. Natasha began eating, watching him cook.

“Did people here know?”

“About my father?” Clint asked. Natasha nodded. “I mean, people knew that my parents weren’t exactly in a happy relationship, that my father was kind of a drunk and he would yell at my mom, me, and pretty much anyone in public, but they didn’t see the physical abuse because they didn’t want to.” He put his bacon on his plate and took a seat again. “Kids, especially boys, are always falling out of trees and roughhousing with their friends, it was easy enough for people to believe bruises and some broken bones were accidental, and my mom was always wearing long sleeves and skirts and scarves. She covered bruises on her face with makeup and wore bright red lipstick if she had a cut lip. She was very strong, even when she was hurt she’d go about things like usual, chatting with people, delivering food, and taking care of everybody. If I hadn’t lived here and seen it happening, I would have had a hard time believing it too.”

“Were you close?” Natasha asked. “Sorry, if you don’t want to talk about it…”

“It’s alright, it’s been a long time since I’ve talked about her...yes, we were really close. I was definitely a “mama’s boy” when I was a kid.” Natasha tilted her head at him. “It just means that I spent a lot of time with her and loved being with her. That sort of thing.”

“Are young children not usually close with their mothers?”

“Young boys often reach an age where they stop listening to their moms and would rather go out and play than do things with them. Unfortunately the idea that boys can’t do “girly” things gets planted when they’re young, and hanging out with your mom is considered girly. I didn’t really care about being girly, though. I spent a lot of time with her in here,” he gestured to the kitchen, “and she taught me how to cook. She basically ran the farm by herself and would also make soups, breads, desserts, all kinds of food which she sold along with farm products. She was the kind of person who’d walk for miles to give free food to people who couldn’t afford it even though she knew it’d made my father angry.”

“She sounds really nice,” Natasha commented.

“She was. I’m glad I take after her. My mom taught me a lot more than just cooking; she taught me to be strong, and she taught me that no matter what you’re going through and what pain you’re in, there’s always room for kindness. I had to learn for myself how to fight back, but a lot of who I am I get from her.” He polished off the last of his bacon and carried his plate over to the sink. Natasha rested her elbow on the counter and put her chin in her hand, watching him.

“Do you miss her?”

“Yeah, of course I do, but it was also long time ago. She’ll always be my mom, and I’ll always miss her, but...I found a way to move on from what happened here. I found a family at the circus, and I know that it’s what she would have wanted. She wanted me to be loved and I think it would have made her really happy to know I was so well loved. She’ll always be a part of me, but memories fade, you know? Sometimes it’s hard to remember her face, her voice, even the day she died, other times it all comes to me clearly. I guess that’s just part of letting someone go, right?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Natasha replied.

“Well, what about Vivian?” He asked, turning towards her and leaning his back against the counter. “It’s not the exact same thing, but it’s been about 11 years for both of us since they died.”

“In the Red Room they could choose what memories they wanted me to forget, but...they could also choose the memories they wanted me to remember,” Natasha replied.

“What? I mean I understand the concept of  _ erasing  _ memories, though probably not on the KGB’s level, but how could they  _ prevent  _ you from losing details over time?”

“They could get inside my head,” she explained, “I can’t...fully explain the process, but they were able to trigger certain memories. It wasn’t like watching the event,” Natasha said, staring down into her empty mug, “I relived killing her, all of the sensations and emotions and pain...over and over. They would weaken my mind with torture and drugs to the point where I was no longer aware of the present, so I was incapable of realizing that I was reliving a memory. Each time was as real as the first. I didn’t just kill her once, I killed her a thousand times, and it wasn’t just 11 years ago--it was every time over the past 11 years that I needed reminding.”

Clint knew that after everything Natasha had told him he should no longer be surprised by the KGB’s cruelty, but he was.

“Why?” He asked, when he had calmed down enough to form words, “why go to so much trouble to make you relive it? It’s not like you were ever  _ really  _ going to forget.”

“You’ve just said it,” Natasha responded. “You’ll always remember what happened to your mom, and it will always hurt, but over time the pain has faded. Pain is the KGB’s main instructional tool and they don’t think there’s any point in teaching a lesson that can fade.”

“Natasha, I’m…” Clint sighed, loosening his angry iron grip on the counter. The word ‘sorry’ was such an understatement that saying it felt like a joke, and Natasha was probably tired of hearing it. “Now that you’re here, these events that they made you relive can finally start to become just memories, and over time the pain will fade.”

“How?” She asked.

“Generally by talking about them, which I know will be hard for you because it was hard for me and I’m pretty open, but I believe you can do it. Telling me about Vivian was a really good start. Once you can talk about what happened and truly face the pain, the memories will lose their control over you, and you’ll be able to start moving on.”

“What do you mean by memories having control over me?”

“When you don’t want to talk about something that happened or you try to pretend that it didn’t hurt you so you don’t have to face the pain it caused, it’s out of fear. Fear won’t just fade, it has to be overcome. Until your fear is overcome, your memories won’t fade; they’ll still have control over you.”

“Ah,” she said.

“There’s nothing wrong with being afraid, Natasha,” Clint said softly, “I’d be afraid too if I had your memories. We think that our fear protects us from the pain of the past, but really it just forces us to continue carrying that pain in the present. It’ll take as long as it takes, just know that when you want to talk, I’m here for you. Whether you need to talk about the people they made you torture or kill, or any of the times or ways they tortured you, or anything, you can talk to me. I’m not afraid of your memories--I’m angry at the KGB for what you’ve gone through, but I’m not afraid. Okay?” Natasha nodded. “Alright then, let’s go get those pastries.”

 

***

 

Clint pulled up to the curb and turned the engine off. After cleaning up their breakfast, the spies had gotten in the car and made the journey into town. Although it was still cold and cloudy in New York, spring had come to the South, and they were surrounded on all sides by rolling green hills with a clear blue sky overhead. The main street of the small town was fairly empty at 8am, with only a few people strolling by, holding cups of coffee and chatting animatedly.

“By the way,” Clint said, “my name here is Steward. I changed it when I joined the circus but didn’t want to explain the whole name change to anybody here. It’s best that they not know our real names anyway.”

“I’ll be Stephanie, then,” Natasha replied, opening her door and stepping out onto the sidewalk. “So you’ve been back here?”

“I came back when S.H.I.E.L.D. started renovating the house, yeah,” he said. “S.H.I.E.L.D. could have just taken the place and cited “government” business or something but thought it’d be better if people here knew I had handed it over willingly. Apparently they had refused to sell the place since it was technically owned and they probably felt guilty after...you know.” Clint led her down the street.

“Do they know where you’ve been all this time?”

“No. The older people, who were adults when I was here, didn’t ask. Again with the guilt, they don’t want to hear that I was homeless or something. Some of the kids our age asked, but I didn’t like them back then so I just ignore them. All they know is that I work for the government. We were very vague about why the government wanted the house, only that various people might be coming and going and not to disturb them for any reason--people out here like to bring food to be “neighborly” when they want to do some snooping. It may have been implied that there are cameras on the property which, to be fair, there are. Here we are,” he added, as they reached “The Mother Goose Bakery.” A bell tinkled as Clint opened the door and they stepped inside. A moment later, a kind-looking woman who appeared to be in her late fifties stepped out from the back of the shop, wiping her hands on a flour covered apron. When she caught sight of Clint she beamed at him and made a gesture in sign language.

“It’s good to see you too, Linda,” he replied, smiling.

“How long has it been, now? Four years?”

“Give or take a few months, yeah,” he nodded.

“I think you’ve grown since the last time I saw you! You never would have thought you’d grow up to be such a tall young man!” Her eyes fell on Natasha and she smiled warmly. “Who’s this?”

“This is my friend Stephanie.”

“Well it’s very nice to meet you. You two in town long?”

“No, we’ve got to get back to work soon,” he replied apologetically. “But I wasn’t about to come all the way out here without saying hello, and not without getting some things from your bakery. They just don’t make ‘em the same in big cities.”

“What’ll it be then? It’s all fresh outta the oven this morning, and you came just in time to get the first fresh berries of the season.”

“Ooh…” Clint said, leaning over the display case. “You know, Stephanie, we could have bread  _ and  _ pie tonight, then pastries tomorrow. Plus, I could go for a potato donut right now…”

“You just ate nine pieces of bacon, two pieces of toast and a mountain of eggs, how are you  _ still  _ hungry?”

“That was like 30 minutes ago, though.”

“You astound me.”

“Okay how about the blackberry pie and the french loaf,” he gestured to the display case. “Then whatever pastry you want?”

“That sounds fine. I’ll have…” Natasha peered at the array of sweets. “The chocolate croissant,” she decided at random.

“Alright, can we get the blackberry pie, a loaf of french bread, a chocolate croissant, a bear claw, and a potato donut please, Linda?” Clint asked. Linda carefully packaged their food and Clint paid. “Thanks, Linda,” he said.

“Thank you,” Natasha added, as she held open the door for Clint.

“It was good to see you! Come back any time!” She called after them. Clint gave her a small wave and the two of them left the shop. Natasha made to walk back towards the car, but Clint stopped her.

“Hold up,” he said, offering her the bag of pastries. “I need to buy ice cream.”

“We already have pie.”

“Exactly, you can’t eat pie without ice cream.”

“Is this another American rule?”

“No, it’s just common sense,” he replied solemnly. “Just wait for me at the car, I’ll only be a moment.” 

“Okay.” He ran across the street and ducked inside the local grocery store, leaving Natasha to walk back to the car. By the time Clint returned 5 minutes later, Natasha was leaning casually against the hood of the car, arms crossed. In her dark sunglasses and all black outfit, she stood out against the pastel colored storefronts and light blue sky, so much so that passersby stared at her as they walked along the sidewalks. Clint reached the car and unlocked it, setting his bag in the backseat.

“We’ve got to get you some new clothes,” he commented, as Natasha places the bakery goods beside the ice cream and settled into her seat. Clint got in, turned on the car, and pulled back onto the road.

“Why?”

“Cause you may be able to blend in New York, but out here you look like a spy.”

“I am a spy.”

“Yeah, but you’re not supposed to look like it. Aren’t you tired of S.H.I.E.L.D. clothes?”

“No, what’s wrong with them?”

“You should have your own clothes. Like, ones you’ve chosen.”

“Why?”

“Comfort? Style? There are lots of reasons to want your own stuff, it’s an expression of who you are.”

“I don’t know who I am, or what I like.”

“So we go to some stores and you try stuff on. You can’t really know what you like until you’ve tried it. Maybe you want to wear dresses, maybe you want to wear a suit, maybe you want to wear a leather jacket and jeans. I think you’ll know what you like when you try stuff on. You just have to think about what you want to look like, what makes you comfortable and confident.”

“I have been trained to look the way I am required to look and not care about anything else. I dress to appear the way others wish me too. Clothes do not give me confidence or comfort, they are just a means of disguise.”

“The fact that you had to be conditioned to feel this way means that you had to be trained to feel differently than you actually wanted to. That means that there is a part of you that cares, it’s just suppressed. Suppressed emotions and behaviors can come back, you just have to overcome your training. I’m not trying to make it seem easier than it is, but I’m saying that it is possible. It’s important that you push back, Natasha, even for things you don’t think matter. Our goal is to break through your training so that you can truly be free. It’s going to be an uphill battle, but things like choosing what you like to wear, eat, listen to, and watch will make it easier because all of your other programming will automatically be weakened as you gain individuality. I can go with you, and you can try on as many things as you need to get a sense of what you might like or dislike.”

“I don’t want to make you do that.”

“Oh no, I love shopping,” Clint grinned.

“I thought men didn’t like shopping,” Natasha said.

“Well that’s a stereotype, although it’s often true. Shopping is considered to be a girl thing and guys are trained to be exasperated by it. But growing up, all my friends were girls, and I didn’t really like other boys, so I learned to like what the girls liked.”

“Why were all your friends girls?”

“Well, when I lived here I got along better with the girls because I could hear them. The boys were always screaming and yelling, and the girls did too sometimes, but for the most part female voices were easier for me to hear. Besides, the girls were nicer to me. The whole “boys are tough” thing was pretty prominent out here, dads and boys going out hunting while girls and their moms cooked and cleaned was fairly standard. Boys made fun of me and excluded me because I was deaf and that made me weak in their eyes, while girls let me play with them because they were taught to be kind and nurturing. So my main behavioral influences here were my mom and the girls my age. Then in the circus, something like 80% of the kids were girls ‘cause most runaway kids are girls. I was 3 years younger than the youngest boy, and they didn’t want me tagging along with them because I was young and different, so I just stuck with the girls like I always had. When we were near big cities the adults would let us loose, as long as we had an adult or teenage chaperone, and we’d usually end up in clothes shops or window-shopping. No one ever taught me that I wasn’t supposed to like doing girly things.” He shrugged. Clint pulled into the driveway and they carried their food inside, putting it away. Natasha sat down at the island and Clint put another pot of coffee on.

“You don’t strike me as particularly girly,” Natasha remarked, after examining him for a moment.

“Well, I don’t  _ look  _ that girly,” he conceded. “I did when I was young but then I buffed out, and people naturally associate muscular with masculine, like how people think female bodybuilders look masculine because they’re muscular. And I never got into wearing makeup or nail polish, although,” he raised a finger, “I’m really good at  _ giving  _ makeovers. I’m more stereotypically “girly” in that I like cooking, and spend  _ forever  _ shopping and decorating, and watch soap operas, and like to order really sugary coffee drinks with complicated names at Starbucks but pretend they don’t have a million calories. Also, women will gossip with me like I’m a girl. It’s actually pretty helpful on missions because flirting with receptionists to get information only works sometimes, but they always know all the gossip and are usually bored enough to spill it.” He handed Natasha a mug of coffee and poured himself one. “The thing is, I don’t think there’s anything  _ wrong  _ with being girly. Other people say it like an insult, but I think girls kick ass, and if everyone stopped pretending they don’t have emotions and started trying to get in touch with them, the world would be a better place. So,” he shrugged, taking a sip of his coffee.

“I don’t want to take any more time off just to shop, though,” Natasha said. “I want to work.”

“Well, how about we drive back early. There are a bunch of big shopping centers between here and New York, we can stop and shop, spend the night at a motel, and then drive back. Maybe if you find out some preferences you might have, that’ll give us some ideas of where to shop in New York when we’re between missions. We’ll get back home a few hours earlier this way,” he added, correctly guessing that the promise of returning to New York early would be enough to convince her. 

“Alright,” she agreed.

“But we still have to wait for your leg to heal before we can go on missions.”

“My leg is fine,” she muttered.

“Your kinda fine or mine?”

“It’s fine, I’ve barely been working out at all. Speaking of which,” she nodded to his mug, “Isn’t that your fourth cup?”

“Yeah, I’m gonna need to go for a run soon to work off the energy.”

“Can I come?” Natasha had gone for a few strolls and done some indoor exercises, but every time she had gone outside to do more, Clint had been there. The Archer’s presence had been enough to deter her from a more vigorous workout that could agitate her injury, but she felt like she was slowly going insane from lack of movement. 

“Sure you should be running on that leg?”

“It’s not like the wound is on my foot, Clint.”

“Your leg is connected to your foot, Natasha.”

“I’ll be careful.”

“Alright,” he conceded, “but you’ve got to pay attention to it and I’m gonna check on it afterwards, okay?”

“Okay,” Natasha nodded.

“I’ll meet you on the porch in 5,” Clint responded, and the two went off to change. A few minutes later they set off towards the edge of the forest, and after a while, disappeared from sight.

 

***

 

Clint ducked through the open window onto the roof of the house and took a seat next to Natasha, handing her a plate of pie and ice cream. They had eaten an early dinner and decided to sit on the house’s roof, which was flatter than the barn, to eat their dessert.

“Did you sit out here often?” Natasha asked.

“Yeah, that,” Clint gestured through the window, “was my room. I used to climb out here in the middle of the night when I couldn’t sleep and I’d just lay down and watch the stars. I fell asleep out here a few times. Something about sleeping outside was calming to me, despite it being freezing or very hot a lot of the time.”

“Hm. I haven’t slept outside many times, I don’t think, but I suppose the night sky is interesting,” Natasha responded. She watched him eat his dessert and copied him, getting both pie and ice cream into each bite and nodding when he looked at her eagerly for a reaction.

“You like?”

“It’s good,” she stated.

“I really like pie,” Clint replied, taking another bite of his and staring out at the horizon.

“You like just about everything,” Natasha pointed out.

“Fair point.”

“When will we be leaving tomorrow?” She asked.

“I guess early, as soon as we can get up and pack the car. We can eat breakfast on the road.” Normally Clint encouraged Natasha to fight her urge to return to base as quickly as possible, but in this case he was just as eager as she was to leave. “The nearest shops are a few hours away so everything should be open if we leave after 7. Once we’re back in New York I figure we’ll still be off active duty for a few days, but not too long because you’re healing a lot faster than I expected, especially since you’re so hard on your injuries…” he took another bite of pie, looking over at her. “Is that one of the ways they enhanced you?”

“Yes, I heal faster than ordinary humans.”

“Do you know how they did that?” Natasha glanced at him. “I’m only asking ‘cause I know the S.H.I.E.L.D. docs will want to know how you healed so quickly when they end up clearing you like 2 weeks early from a nearly fatal injury, and I don’t want you to be caught off guard when they ask,” he explained.

“I don’t know the exact science behind everything, and what I do know, I can’t tell you yet,” she responded. “I can tell you it was a multistep process involving genetic engineering and drug treatments, some of which I know the formulas for but can’t…” she shook her head.

“It’s okay, Natasha, it’ll take as long as it takes.”

“I don’t think the scientists at S.H.I.E.L.D. are okay with waiting forever.” Clint sighed. He wanted to tell her that he’d never let them start any experiments until she was ready, but he didn’t have the power to stop the Board’s orders, and he didn’t want to lie to her.

“You know they won’t hurt you, right? I know that just the experience of being in a lab surrounded by scientists is traumatic for you, but they’re not evil like the scientists you remember. They wouldn’t intentionally hurt you, they just want to figure out how the KGB modified you to see if they can give our people similar modifications. If anything, they’ll do their very best not to hurt you because you’re all they have to go off of.”

“I know, Clint,” she said quietly. “It’s not just that I’m...afraid, I…” Natasha gritted her teeth and let out a hiss of annoyance as she was unable to form words. “I can’t say that, but I can tell you two things; there’s a reason the trial started at birth. None of us were more than a week old when we were taken, and that was...important. The second thing is...I told you a lot of the girls in the trial died from the conditioning and experiments. I don’t just mean that they died in training, or from starvation, or being injected with too many drugs and overdosing. They died because of...what they were, and I don’t know what factor or factors played a role.”

“You’re saying that S.H.I.E.L.D. couldn’t modify Agents to be like you, they’d have to experiment on babies?” 

“Some of it required...potential.”

“Some of the modifications have to be made  _ before  _ growth,” Clint translated.

“Potential is necessary, yes.”

“And when you say the girls died because of what they were...you’re saying that the enhancements just...killed them?” She gave a small nod. “How many?” For a moment Natasha looked like she was searching for what she could say, then she seemed to find it.

“One example...I told you that it was required we reach full growth by the age of 12, with a body of about 18 with fully fused growth plates and a brain of about 25 with a fully developed prefrontal cortex.”

“Yeah?”

“This required rapid growth. Ten percent were unable to handle the requirements.” Clint stared at her for so long that Natasha was beginning to think he hadn’t understood, and then he finally spoke.

“You’re saying that 120 girls died from the growing pains  _ alone? _ Other modifications caused  _ more _ deaths?” Natasha tilted her head slightly in confirmation. “And you don’t know or couldn’t say which modifications were involved.”

“Right.”

“So basically, trying to replicate anything they did to you could be fatal.”

“The S.H.I.E.L.D. scientists are smart. I believe it  _ may _ be possible for them to isolate nonlethal enhancements, but with their current level of technology and all of the potential complications, people would die, and I would be responsible.”

“No, no Natasha, you wouldn’t.”

“My blood, my DNA, my knowledge.”

“Well they’re not going to try anything if they know it’s so dangerous, and they’re not going to kidnap a bunch of newborns either.”

“They won’t give up on the idea until I can tell them exactly what happened in my trial, which I still can’t. And even then, your Board may decide that I’m lying to prevent S.H.I.E.L.D. from gaining the same advantages as the KGB.”

“This’ll be enough of a warning for them to at least slow down, and be careful, and not do any experiments too soon. In the meantime, we can work on helping you to be able to speak freely, and the more missions we do the more the Board will trust you, alright?”

“They may never trust me,” Natasha replied. “I wouldn’t.”

“You’ll trust yourself eventually, Natasha,” Clint murmured.

“That’s not what I--”

“I get it, I do. I wouldn’t trust myself either if I knew something was wrong and did everything I could to not do it, but ended up doing it anyway, even if I was forced to and literally couldn’t stop myself. You’re free now, and you can choose to do or not do whatever you want. You’ll learn to trust yourself, then the Board will too. It’s hard to convince people to trust you when you don’t believe they should. Until you learn to trust yourself, I’ll just have to convince people myself, but Fury won’t let the Board do anything monumentally stupid. I can’t promise that I can stop them from doing their tests, but I’m not going to let them kill anyone with your enhancements. Deal?”

“Deal,” she responded. Clint shivered as the breeze ruffled his hair, and glanced over at Natasha as he zipped up his jacket. She was still wearing a tanktop and shorts from their earlier run, but looked perfectly at ease as the day’s warmth was sucked away by setting sun.

“Aren’t you cold?” He asked.

“No, not really,” she replied, staring out at the horizon. Clint reached through the window and tugged one of the blankets off the bed, dragging it onto the roof. “If you’re cold, why not go inside?”

“That’s what blankets are for. Sitting outside when it’s freezing but being wrapped up in a blanket is how you’re  _ supposed  _ to enjoy night time. Anyone who’s ever stargazed can tell you that.” He tugged a second blanket outside and laid it next to her before pulling his own around himself.

“Did you not undergo conditioning in various climates during your training?” She asked, arching a brow at him.

“I’m not saying I couldn’t kick someone’s ass right now, but my training didn’t teach me to  _ not  _ be cold, it just taught me to fight through it. What about you? You don’t even have goosebumps, is that another of your enhancements?”

“I’m Russian,” Natasha said simply.

“Ah. Well you must have been conditioned in different climates too, right? They dropped us all over the place to train.”

“Most of our climate conditioning took place inside. They had rooms specifically designed for it. I do remember...one time, being let out to train in the snow. We were still young, 7, and apparently we were let out on multiple occasions before that but I can only remember the one. Exiting the building, were in a type of courtyard. It was one of the only times I ever left the building conscious, they always sedated me to take me to my mission drop points. The walls were 30 feet high and the inside was layered with sleek metal so it couldn’t be climbed. There was a dome covering it, a metal cage that had allowed the snow to accumulate taller than I was at the time. It’s the first time I can remember breathing fresh air. Once I grew older I was no longer allowed into the courtyard when the others trained.”

“Why not?”

“I was deemed too great a security risk. I may have attempted to escape.”

“But the others wouldn’t have?”  

“No,” Natasha replied, shaking her head. “They knew better, but despite being constantly taught my lesson, I still did not.”

“Are they...like you?” Clint asked.

“Like me?”

“I mean, you could have tried to fight me, but you didn’t. You could have tried to escape, but you haven’t. Do they also feel remorse, if we freed them would they also want to work for S.H.I.E.L.D. or do some kind of good in the world?” Natasha stared at him for a moment, then looked away.

“I’m no better than they are. They don’t deserve to be there, they deserve to be saved.”

“But?”

“But...I’d never turn my back on one of them,” she said quietly. “They deserve to be freed from that place, but...they’re dangerous. They’ll do whatever they have to do to survive, even if the most profitable path is killing innocent people or destroying S.H.I.E.L.D. It’s not their fault,” she added. “They did what they had to do and I...didn’t. I was the example of what rebelling gets you; I refused to do as I was told, earned myself more pain and humiliation, and ultimately did it anyway. They learned the lesson I never could, that fighting back doesn’t get you anything. The only think they could control was the  _ amount  _ of suffering they endured. We all had to deal with the pain of the experiments, and the brainwashing, and the conditioning and training, but...if you easily accepted your missions you wouldn’t have to be tortured into obedience or punished again after the mission, if you always did as you were told without hesitation they wouldn’t have to brainwash you as often, and if you made one of the guards fall in love with you he’d want you to himself and ask his friends to leave you alone...they did what they had to do to make life a little less unbearable. I just wasn’t that smart. I made my life as painful and humiliating as possible and never learned. What they did was…” she trailed off, biting her lip.

“What?” Clint asked, after a lengthy pause.

“It was the right thing to do for them, but it made them cold. It taught them to do what’s best for them, even if it hurts other people, and for their whole lives, what’s best for them has  _ killed  _ other people. That attitude, in people that deadly with that much anger...could be disastrous. They deserve to be saved, but whether or not they should live…” she shook her head. “The world would probably be better off if we were all wiped out.”

“Not you.”

“I’ve done everything they’ve done. Worse, because I was the best, and I had to be punished by making me kill more people.”

“But you’ve just said it. They learned to do what’s best for them, even though that means killing people. You learned to fight for other people’s lives, even though it wasn’t what was best for you. The fact that you were forced to kill them anyway doesn’t matter because now that you’re free, you’re still putting yourself at risk for other people. You say the others are dangerous and I believe you, because anyone with that attitude is dangerous and if they’re half as good as you, they could do a lot of damage. But I don’t believe that you’re like them. Doing the same things doesn’t make you them same, it’s  _ why  _ you do those things. None of you had a choice, and if it’s at all possible I’d like to help them, but I  _ know  _ it’s possible to help you. Okay?”

“Okay,” Natasha gave a small nod. They sat in silence for a few minutes, watching the stars start to appear, and then Clint spoke.

“Why did you fight back?” Natasha looked over at him. “When all it got you was pain and you’d ultimately still do what they wanted, what made you keep rebelling when none of the other girls did?”

“I had something,” Natasha responded softly. “I had something that none of the other girls had, and they...took it from me. It didn’t matter to me after that. It didn’t matter to me how many times they tortured me or raped me, it didn’t matter if they starved me or drugged me. I killed guards every chance I got, tried to escape, tried to destroy their machines and their laboratories. They’d torture me until they could brainwash me, then torture me again. They took something from me and no amount of torture and torment could make me fear them more than I hated them.” Clint watched her quietly for a moment.

“When you’re ready to talk about it, I’ll be here,” he said softly.

“Thank you, Clint.”

“No problem.”

***


End file.
